Hemolymph Clotting in Insects

Abstract

Hemolymph clotting in insects has been reviewed repeatedly over the last 15 years [20,31,32,33,35,59]. These reviews reflect the situation of clotting research in insects. The overwhelming majority of investigations was mainly concerned with the cytological aspects of clotting: which type of hemocyte cells is engaged in clotting, and how the structure of the cells is altered during the clotting process. Until recently only a few papers have been published in which a biochemical approach was attempted. During the last years, however, some progress has been made in the analysis of the biochemical events occurring during clotting. In this review emphasis is laid on this aspect and, therefore, only those earlier papers which are connected with this subject will be dealth with here. For other papers, the reader is referred to the reviews cited above.