An electron-microscope study of the lampbrush chromosomes of the newt Triturus cristatus

Abstract

The ultrastructure of lampbrush chromosomes has been examined in sections of end-embedded spread preparations, where the nuclear sap was dispersed prior to fixation, and in oocyte nuclei fixed entire, in 60-kV and i-MV electron microscopes. In spread preparations the axial chromomeres are seen to be organized as regularly spaced, unravelled skeins of DNP, each with a skein width of some 30 nm, though in some chromomeres there are regions where the DNP is much more densely packed. In both unravelled and dense regions, the ‘ultimate’ DNP fibres, wherever they can be identified, appear to be some 5 nm wide and thrown into loose coils. The unravelled state, although it clearly reflects an orderly packaging of the non-transcribing DNP, is an artifact of preparation; in sections of entire nuclei all chromomeres are seen to consist of DNP fibrils in the more densely packed state. The interchromeric fibril is single, and some 10 nm or less wide; it shows no sign of transcriptional activity. In sections of end-embedded preparations the RNPmatrix of most lateral loops, where transcription occurs, is seen to be made up of particles, each uniformly some 30 nm in diameter and strung together in linear array. These RNP particles are equally evident in sections of whole nuclei. In many loops the strings of particles are wound back on themselves to form regularly spaced, dense aggregates, each some 200–300 nm wide or wider; the larger aggregates can be resolved in the light micrpscope. The RNP particles are of the same dimensions throughout the lengths of individual lateral loops, and of substantially the same dimensions in loops of different gross morphologies. It is suggested that as each successive short length of RNA is transcribed from loop axis DNA, a protein associates with this RNA and winds it up to form a ‘manageable’ package, allowing transcription to proceed.