UCSF

Germ cells develop as a cyst of interconnected sibling cells in a broad range of organisms in both sexes. A well-established function of intercellular connectivity is to transport cytoplasmic materials from nurse cells to oocytes, a critical process for developing functional oocytes in ovaries of many species. However, there are situations where connectivity exists without a nursing mechanism, and the biological meaning of such connectivity remains obscure. In this review, we summarize current knowledge on the formation of intercellular connectivity, and discuss its meaning by visiting multiple examples of germ cell connectivity observed in evolutionarily distant species.