Nathalie,
I looked over my old xeroxed copy of Chitwood & Chitwood (1950) "An
Introduction to Nematology" for info on the intestine in other nematodes.
There really isn't anything similar to the chordate ENS, certainly no extra
neurons there.
Perhaps the closest homologues would be the specialized muscles surrounding
the posterior gut, and their nervous input from the dorso-rectal ganglion
(esp DVB). Several muscles squeeze the gut there, and all nematodes appear
to have a single muscle cell acting as a sphincter and a single muscle cell
acting as a dilator.
Best regards,
Dave
David H. Hall
Center for C. elegans Anatomy
Department of Neuroscience
1410 Pelham Parkway
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, NY 10461
phone (718) 430-2195 FAX (718) 430-8821
hall at aecom.yu.edu
website: www.aecom.yu.edu/wormem
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