C-cell processes provide a template for migratory myocytes (young muscle cells) to collect and assemble. This provides the scaffold for assembly of the oblique muscle layer, one of the 3 muscle layers that produce force vectors by contracting against the hydrostatic skeleton of the leech.
Oblique myocytes (m) align with C-cell processes and form specialized junctions with it and with each other. As the small muscle cells fasciculate they establish a common basement membrane that provides structure to each of the parallel muscle fascicles. These muscle fibers come to be innervated by motor neurons that project from the CNS. The C-cell appears to commit cellular suicide (apoptosis) shortly after 20 days of embryonic life, once the muscle layer is formed.