visceral muscle cell [FBbt_00005070]

visceral muscle cell

ID: FBbt_00005070

Muscle cell of a muscle that moves the viscera, usually with a peristaltic or compressing function, and has only one or, commonly no attachment to the body wall. Visceral muscles differ from somatic muscles in several respects: adjacent fibers are held together by desmosomes, each fiber is uninucleate and the contractile material is not grouped into fibrils but packs the whole fiber. The visceral musculature comprises musculature of the intestine, reproductive system and circulatory system (Miller, 1950). The circular fibers derive from a bilaterally symmetrical band of mesodermal cells extending continuously throughout most of the germ band. The longitudinal fibers derive from clusters of mesodermal cells which appear during stage 12 at the posterior end of the embryo and migrate anteriorly.

It is quite common to refer to visceral muscles as smooth muscles, by analogy with vertebrates; however most visceral (and somatic) muscles in Drosophila are actually striated (Miller, 1950; Bate, 1993).