Bodies of wall-like material (“wall-bodies”) produced intracellularly by cultured isolated protoplasts and plasmolysed cells of higher plants

Summary

Unusual bodies are of general occurrence in cultured protoplasts isolated from tomato “Ailsa Craig” fruit locule tissue. They are also common in the equivalent cultured plasmolysed tissue, but do not occur when the culture medium is non-plasmolysing. Similar bodies are of universal occurrence in cultured protoplast spontaneous fusion bodies from tobacco “Xanthi” leaves, but are not found when the cultured protoplasts are not initially fused. Bodies also occur in cultured protoplasts isolated from leaves of rye “Dominant”. They do not occur in cultured protoplasts from rose “Paul's Scarlet” cells.

These bodies have been studied by light and electron microscopy. Schiff and periodic acid—Schiff—phosphotungstic acid stains indicate the presence in them of cellulose, and this is also suggested by their fluorescence with calcofluor and their appearance in the electron microscope. Some of them fluoresce with aniline-blue. Some material within the bodies stains with phosphotungstic acid-chromic acid, suggesting that some of the contents of the bodies is plasmalemma-like. The bounding membrane is only partly stained with phosphotungstic acid-chromic acid. There is a general parallel between the composition of the wall regenerated by the protoplasts and the composition of these bodies, and between the timing and extent of their development and that of the regenerated wall. On the basis of these observations, these bodies are named “wall-bodies” and regarded as composed of similar materials to those making up the regenerated wall. The observations, especially of wall-body production by tobacco fusion bodies, strongly suggest a plasmalemma origin for the membranes of the vesicles in which these bodies arise.