Insect endocuticle thickens after adult emergence by daily alternating deposition of two chitin layers with different orientation. Although the cuticle deposition rhythm is known to be controlled by a circadian clock in many insects, the site of the driving clock, the photoreceptor for entrainment, and the oscillatory mechanism remain elusive. Here, we show that the cuticle deposition rhythm is...

Plant leaf cuticle is related to the prevention of moisture loss, transpiration, and diffusion of light reflection. The purpose of this study was to examine the morphological characteristics of ginseng leaves in ginseng plants resistant and susceptible to high temperature injury (HTI) to be related with the leaf-burning. For the HTI resistant lines Yunpoong, high-temperature injury resistance (...

Patterning of the Drosophila ventral epidermis is a tractable model for understanding the role of signalling pathways in development. Interplay between Wingless and EGFR signalling determines the segmentally repeated pattern of alternating denticle belts and smooth cuticle: spitz group genes, which encode factors that stimulate EGFR signalling, induce the denticle fate, while Wingless signallin...

Human hair has three main regions, the medulla, the cortex, and the cuticle. An existing model for the cortex suggests that the α-keratin- based intermediate filaments (IFs) align with the hair's axis, but are orientationally disordered in-plane. We found that there is a new region in the cortex near the cuticle's boundary in which the IFs are aligned with the hair's axis, but additionally, the...

When plants conquered land, they developed specialized organs, tissues, and cells in order to survive in this new and harsh terrestrial environment. New cell polymers such as the hydrophobic lipid-based polyesters cutin, suberin, and sporopollenin were also developed for protection against water loss, radiation, and other potentially harmful abiotic factors. Cutin and waxes are the main compone...

The calyptra is a maternal structure that protects the sporophyte offspring from dehydration, and positively impacts sporophyte survival and fitness in mosses. We explore the relationship between cuticle protection and sporophyte height as a proxy for dehydration stress in Funariaceae species with sporophytes across a range of sizes. Calyptrae and sporophytes from four species were collected fr...

The adult cuticle of the soil nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, is a proteinaceous extracellular structure elaborated by the underlying layer of hypodermal cells during the final molt in the animal's life cycle. The cuticle is composed of an outer cortical layer connected by regularly arranged struts to an inner basal layer. The cuticle can be isolated largely intact and free of all cellular ma...

The surface of most aerial plant organs is covered with a cuticle that provides protection against multiple stress factors including dehydration. Interest on the nature of this external layer dates back to the beginning of the 19th century and since then, several studies facilitated a better understanding of cuticular chemical composition and structure. The prevailing undertanding of the cuticl...

The crustacean cuticle consists of a complex organic matrix and a mineral phase. The physical and chemical properties of the cuticle are corellated to the specific functions of cuticular elements, leading to a large variety in its structure and composition. Investigation of the structure-function relationship in crustacean cuticle requires sophisticated methodological tools for the analysis of ...

The contribution of aliphatic-rich plant biopolymer to sorption of hydrophobic organic compounds is significantly important because of their preservation and accumulation in the soil environment, but sorption mechanism is still not fully understood. In this study, sorption of 1-naphthol by plant cuticular fractions was examined to better understand the contributions of respective fraction. Towa...