Summary
In all blastomeres of Nassarius from 4- to 16-cell stage yolk nuclei occur. Most of them are spherical bodies, lying juxtanuclearly between the nucleus and the apical plasmalemma. Strangely they are not ultrastructurally uniform but fall into two categories (Fig. 5): Type I is a massive spherical accumulation of mitochondria embedded in a dense intermitochondrial substance, which appears to contain both granules and filaments. Type II is a ball of radially arranged small Golgi stacks clustered around a centre of Golgi vesicles and other organelles embedded in a ground cytoplasm structurally similar to the intermitochondrial substance of type I. The function of both types of yolk nuclei is unknown. These segmentation yolk nuclei have nothing to do with yolk synthesis any more. On the other hand there are no indications that yolk nuclei occurrence is correlated with the break-down of yolk because neither lipid droplets nor protein yolk granules are observed in or beside the yolk nuclei.
Zusammenfassung
Dotterkerne kommen in allen Blastomeren des 4- bis 16-Zellstadiums von Nassarius vor. Sie haben überwiegend kugelige Gestalt und liegen kernnah zwischen Kern und apikalem Plasmalemm. Feinstrukturell sind sie erstaunlicherweise nicht einheitlich aufgebaut, sondern treten in zwei Typen auf: Typ I besteht aus einer relativ kompakt erscheinenden kugeligen Ansammlung von Mitochondrien. Die Mitochondrien liegen in einer dichten, teils granulären, teils fibrillären intermitochondrialen Substanz eingebettet. Typ II besteht aus einer ebenfalls kugeligen Ansammlung vieler kleiner radiär angeordneter Golgi-Stapel, welche in der gleichen dichten, teils granulären, teils fibrillären Substanz liegen wie die Mitochondrien von Typ I. Die Funktion beider Typen von Dotterkernen wird diskutiert. Sicherlich haben sie nichts mehr mit der Dottersynthese zu tun wie möglicherweise die Dotterkerne der Oocyten, doch gibt es bisher auch keine Anzeichen dafür, daß sie bevorzugt am Dotter- oder Lipidabbau beteiligt sind.
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This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk.
We wish to thank Mrs. Chr. Mehlis for her valuable technical assistance as well as Professor J. Bergérard for the excellent working conditions on the “Station biologique” at Roscoff (France).
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Schmekel, L., Fioroni, P. The ultrastructure of the yolk nucleus during early cleavage of Nassarius reticulatus L. (Gastropoda, Prosobranchia). Cell Tissue Res. 153, 79–88 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00225447
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00225447