Totally tubular chitin

Flies create uniform tracheal tubes by molding them around an expanding chitin filament, according to Anna Tonning, Anne Uv, and colleagues (Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden).Uv's group suspected that chitin may be involved in shaping tracheal tubes after observing that a chitin synthase mutant forms tracheal branches that look like sausages rather than uniform cylinders. Branch cell fusion junctions were always constricted, with the intervening regions always grossly expanded. Indeed, fluorescent microscopy revealed that chitin normally accumulates within tube lumens during tracheal development, forms a filamentous cable, and uniformly expands to push branch cell fusion junctions outward while preventing overdilation of the remaining epithelium.

These results are consistent with two models. The chitin filament may act as a sponge. As liquid is drawn into the lumen during development, the sponge-like cable would then expand to...