These proteins are not found in the fully constructed female ring canals. Like the ring canals, the bud necks are stable cytoskeletal tubes that allow the sharing of cytoplasm between related cells. Post-meiotic ring canals interconnecting Drosophila spermatids. The confocal image in A shows staining for anillin. The section in B shows the staining for the septin protein Pnut.
Arrowheads identify the same canal in both sections, showing the colocalization of both proteins.
Model for the formation of a spermatogonial syncytium in the rat testis, showing its branching structure. These are probably due to retarded divisions rather than by the loss of cells from the syncytium. Some cells may even drop out of the cell cycle. The failure to divide can be seen in the absence of broken syncytia and in the presence of some cells having three bridges. The dynamics of syncytia formation appears to be a remarkably old phenomena, and there are probably many variations on this mechanism of cytoplasmic continuity.