Nutritive cord connection and dye-coupling of the follicular epithelium to the growing oocytes in the telotrophic ovarioles inOncopeltus fasciatus, the milkweed bug.

Microinjected dyes were used to study transport routes between cells in the telotrophic ovarioles of the milkweed bug,Oncopeltus fasciatus. Dye movement revealed that transport through the nutritive cords is not dependent upon microtubules, and that the physiological continuity of the cords between the nurse cells and the oocyte is lost shortly after the onset of vitellogenesis. Dye-coupling of epithelial cells to the oocyte is shown to begin in a band of cells at the follicle equator. Coupling begins coincidentally with cord severance and the onset of vitellogenesis.