Computational Study of the Chitin Secreting Gland of Rifia pachyptila

摘要

This work contributes to the morphological study of the chitin secreting glands of the vestimentiferan Riftia pachyptila. These glands are made of an epithelium surrounding a central lumen. The architecture of this epithelium and of the sub lumina cells being not yet understood, the approach chosen has been to figure their morphology and their 3D aspect by analysing photographs of serial semi thin sections of a given gland. According to observations made, sub lumina are classified into two types, inner or connected ones. Inner ones are roughly ellipsoidal, in the middle or near the apical face of the cell. Connected ones show more complex shapes. Algorithms have been implemented to reconstruct a 3D image of a gland from photographs. A 3D computational model is defined to reconstruct the gland sub lumina surface.