Abstract
Young spermatids of the prosobranch mollusc Goniobasis have spherical nuclei with diffuse centers and condensation of the chromatin only at their peripheries. At later stages, this condensation becomes uniform for the entire nucleus, and has a lamellar appearance in sectioned material. In specimens prepared using freeze-etch techniques, these lamellae are resolvable into chromatin strands, each of which has a helical substructure, with a period of ca. 100 Å and a pitch angle of 35°. The strands are ca. 130–140 Å in diameter (comparable to measurements made on micrographs of sectioned material). Most of the strands are oriented in the long axis of the elongating nucleus, but a few are oblique, suggesting that they might serve some sort of binding function. In the mature spermatozoon the chromatin is very compact and dense, and all evidence of the lamellar or stranded appearance is absent, in both sectioned and freeze-etch preparations.
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Henley, C. Chromatin condensation involving lamellar strands in spermiogenesis of Goniobasis proxima . Chromosoma 42, 163–174 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00320938
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00320938