Insights into morphology of the ‘columnar epithelium’ within the female reproductive system of brachyuran crabs

The objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of the not well understood egg-transportation mechanisms through the female reproductive systems of crabs. For this, Carcinus maenas was chosen as a model to study the cuticular epithelium underlying the cuticle of the vagina and the ventral seminal receptacle. This cuticular epithelium is investigated by performing histochemical and ultrastructural analyses of the epithelial cells. The results show that this epithelium consists of specialized epithelial cells that show characteristic features of muscle-attachment cells or tendon cells, such as an abundance of microtubules in their cytoplasm and hemi-adherens junctions. These results improve our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the reproduction in brachyuran crabs and will have to be taken into consideration in the future, when trying to understand the functional morphology of the female reproductive system of crabs.