Summary
The nuclear structure of human spermatogonia has been studied with electron microscopical and histochemical methods. Type B spermatogonia have chromatin clumps without any special ultrastructure and several nucleoli. Five different types of nuclear bodies, and besides, a nuclear vacuole, have been observed in type A spermatogonia. Type I bodies are typical nucleoli consisting of three regions: amorphous, fibrillar and granular. Type II, III and V are considered to be atypical nucleoli. Type IV bodies are small chromatin condensations. Type I bodies are the only ones in which RNA was demonstrated by light histochemical techniques and no PAS positive material was found inside the nuclei. The absence of any special ultrastructure in the chromatin from spermatogonia, and the small mass of the chromatin condensations, show that the human X chromosome and perhaps the Y chromosome are not heteropycnotic in the interphasic nuclei of human spermatogonia.
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Abbreviations
- RNA:
-
ribonucleic acid
- gonia:
-
spermatogonia
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This work has been supported by a grant (No. 2623) of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas, and partially by a grant (C.M. 6522) from the Population Council.
We wish to thank Professor R. E. Mancini for his suggestions during this investigation and his support for its achievement, and to Dr. J. C. Lavieri for providing the biopsies.
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Tres, L.L., Solari, A.J. The ultrastructure of the nuclei and the behaviour of the sex chromosomes of human spermatogonia. Z. Zellforsch. 91, 75–89 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00336985
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00336985