Spindle microtubule differentiation and deployment during micronuclear mitosis in Paramecium.

Spindles underwent a 12-fold elongation before anaphase B was completed during the closed mitoses of micronuclei in Paramecium tetraurelia. Two main classes of spindle microtubules have been identified. A peripheral sheath of microtubules with diameters of 27-32 nm was found to be associated with the nuclear envelope and confined to the midportion of each spindle. Most of the other microtubules had diameters of approximately 24 nm and were present along the entire lengths of spindles. Nearly all of the 24-nm microtubules were eliminated from spindle midportions (largely because of microtubule disassembly) at a relatively early stage of spindle elongation. Disassembly of some of these microtubules also occurred at the ends of spindles. About 60% of the total microtubule content of spindles was lost at this stage. Most, perhaps all, peripheral sheath microtubules remained intact. Many of them detached from the nuclear envelope and regrouped to form a compact microtubule bundle in the spindle midportion. There was little, if any, further polymerization of 24-nm microtubules after the disassembly phase. Polymerization of microtubules with diameters of 27-32 nm continued as spindle elongation progressed. Most microtubules in the midportions of well-elongated spindles were constructed from 14-16 protofilaments. A few 24-nm microtubules with 13 protofilaments were also present. The implications of these findings for spatial control of microtubule assembly, disassembly, positioning, and membrane association, that apparently discriminate between microtubules with different protofilament numbers have been explored. The possibility that microtubule sliding occurs during spindle elongation has also been considered.

Microtubules and control of macronuclear 'amitosis' in Paramecium.

The 'amitotic' division of the macronucleus during binary fission in P. tetraurelia includes a detailed sequence of shape changes that are temporally coordinated with the adoption of a series of well-defined positions and orientations inside the cell. The deployment of nucleoplasmic microtubules that is spatially correlated with the shaping ritual is more complex and precise than has been reported previously. Macronuclear division is not amitotic. It is not a simple constriction into two halves. As a dividing macronucleus starts to elongate it becomes dorsoventrally flattened against the dorsal cortex of the organism and assumes an elliptical shape. Concurrently, an elliptical marginal band of intranuclear microtubules assembles that has the same spatial relationship to nuclear shape as the marginal microtubules assembles that has the same spatial relationship to nuclear shape as the marginal microtubule bands of certain elliptical vertebrate blood cells have to cell shape. The band breaks down as further elongation occurs and the nucleus adopts the shape of a straight and slender sausage. Most of the intranuclear microtubules assemble as elongation starts and break down shortly after elongation is completed; the majority are oriented parallel to the longitudinal axis of the nucleus throughout elongation. Some of them are attached to nucleoli and are coated with granules which are almost certainly derived from the cortices of nucleoli. The peripheral concentration, interconnexion, orientation, and overlapping arrangement of microtubules, and the reduction in microtubule number per nuclear cross-section as elongation proceeds at a rate of about 40 micrometers min-1, are all compatible with the provision of a microtubule sliding mechanism as the main skeletal basis for elongation. There are indications that this mechanism is augmented by anchorage and/or active propulsion of nucleoli that may perhaps facilitate fairly equitable segregation of chromosomal material to daughter nuclei.