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Initiation of development in Arbacia

IV. Some cortical reactions as criteria for optimum fertilization capacity and their significance for the physiology of development

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Summary

  1. 1.

    Eggs of optimum fertilization capacity exhibit high fertilizin content and separate membranes uniformly and rapidly after insemina tion. Uninseminated, such eggs separate membranes in five seconds in tap or distilled water; they form extra-ovates in thirty seconds when exposed to tap or distilled water three minutes after insemination. All of these reactions are associated with the best physiological condition of the egg.

  2. 2.

    Under proper conditions, eggs without jelly fertilize, separating normal membranes. They develop at well as eggs with jelly.

  3. 3.

    The speed of the fertilization-reaction is so great that polyspermy cannot be induced in eggs in optimum condition by any excess of sperm. Nevertheless, the fertilization-reaction may be chemical in nature.

  4. 4.

    These results serve to emphasize anew the leading rôle played by the cortex in the fertilization-reaction.

  5. 5.

    The cortex of the egg is significant in other ways for the physio logy of development.

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Literature cited

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  • - The surface tension theory of membrane elevation. Ibid.46, 1924.

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  • Just, E. E., The fertilization-reaction inEchinarachnius parma. I. Cortical response to insemination. Biol Bull.36, 1919.

  • - The fertilization-reaction, etc. IV. A further analysis of butyric acid activation. Ibid.39, 1920.

  • - The susceptibility of the inseminated egg to hypotonie sea-water: a contribution to the analysis of the fertilization-reaction. Anat. Rec.22, 1921.

  • - Initiation of development inArbacia. II. Fertilization of eggs in various stages of artificially induced mitosis. Biol. Bull.43, 1922a.

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  • - The fertilization-reaction, etc. The necessity of the egg cortex for fertilization. Biol. Bull.44, 1923.

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  • - Decolorization wave of pigment granules in the jelly hull of the inseminated egg ofEchinarachnius parma exposed to dilute sea-water during the process of membrane separation. Ibid., 1927b.

  • - Studies of cell division. II. The period of maximum susceptibility to dilute seawater in the cleavage cycle of the fertilized egg ofArbacia. Physiol. Zoöl.1, 1928 a.

  • - Hydration and dehydration in the living cell. I. The effect of extreme hypotony on the egg ofNereis. Ibid., 1928b.

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  • Yatsu, N., Extraovate experiments on the egg of the sea-urchin. Annal. Zool. Japon., Part. 4.7, 1910.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

    E. E. Just (Rosenwald Fellow in Biology, National Research Council)

  2. Department of Zoölogy, Howard University, Washington, D. C., USA

    E. E. Just (Rosenwald Fellow in Biology, National Research Council)

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  1. E. E. Just
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Just, E.E. Initiation of development in Arbacia. Protoplasma 5, 97–126 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01604592

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