The redifferentiation of nutritive cells in galls induced by Lepidoptera on Tibouchina pulchra (Cham.) Cogn. reveals predefined patterns of plant development.

Insect galls may present nutritive tissues with distinct cytological features related to the order of the gall inducer. Galling Lepidoptera larvae chew plant cells and induce the redifferentiation of parenchymatic cells into nutritive ones. The nutritive cells in the galls induced by a microlepidoptera on the leaves of Tibouchina pulchra (Cham.) Cogn. (Melastomataceae) are organelle-rich, with developed Golgi apparatus, endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, polyribosomes, mitochondria, plastids, and one great central or several fragmented vacuoles. The nonobservance of the nuclei in the nutritive cells deserves special attention, and confers a similarity between the nutritive cells and the vascular conductive ones. The great amount of rough endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, polyribosomes, and mitochondria is indicative of the high metabolic status of these cells. They are vascular cambium-like, with high protein synthesis and lipid storage. The proteins are essential to enzymatic metabolism, and secondarily, to larvae nutrition, similarly to the lipid droplets which confer energetic profile to these nutritive cells. The living enucleated cells receive mRNA from their neighbor ones, which may support the high metabolic profile of endoplasmic reticulum and ribosomes observed in galls. Thus, the nutritive cells are stimulated by the galling larvae activity, generating a new cell type, whose redifferentiation includes a mix of intrinsic and common plant pathways.