The present study concludes that the inorganic
content in the cuticle of S. serrata over the molt
cycle was higher than that of organic content
except at A and B stages. An interesting correlation
between both components was clearly
observed with a symmetrical profile from A stage.
In fact, it showed a close parallelism among all
variation profiles during the premolt and postmolt
stages. This suggests that all components display
constant rates of dissolution and deposition. On
the other hand, the identical or reverse changes
in different organic contents during A stage reveal
their proportional importance for mineralisation.
As expected, both chitin and calcium carbonate are the most representative compounds in
the construction of the cuticle layers in S. serrata
throughout the molt cycle. The mirror images
with GAG peak and chitin depression in the
cuticle at A stage indicate that the GAG increase
represents an initial mineral nucleation period. In
S. serrata the organic fraction of new cuticle
forms from the D2 stage while mineralisation
occurs primarily during ecdysis.