Expulsion of the sex chromosome from the spindle in spermatocytes of a mantid

Summary

• 1. In the primary spermatocytes of the mantid Humbertiella indica the separation of the centers during late prophase is accompanied by corresponding movements of the nuclear membrane. Center and membrane thus remain in close juxtaposition suggesting that some form of attraction operates between them.

• 2. Interpolar distances are subject to a series of changes definitely associated with the successive mitotic phases. At the initiation of spindle formation the distance between the centers is large; it decreases sharply until metaphase; then remains constant until mid anaphase; and progressively increases to an extreme degree during late anaphase and early telophase.

• 3. At first metaphase the autosomal bivalents orient in a typical equatorial plate, but the X chromosome lies out in the cytoplasm, spatially separated from the spindle body by a wall of mitochondria.

• 4. Expulsion of the X chromosome from the spindle is correlated with a delay in its kinetochore-center interaction.

• 5. The anaphase movement of the autosomes is associated with a progressive shortening of the chromosomal fibers during the entire anaphase, accompanied during late anaphase by an elongation of the spindle body. But in the case of the X chromosome shortening of the chromosomal fiber occurs only during late anaphase.

• 6. Subsidiary conclusions on the cytoplasmic origin of the chromosomal fiber of the X, the relation of the bouquet stage to the double polarization of late prophase, the non-chiasmate structure of the autosomal bivalents, and the absence of the premetaphase stretch stage are recorded.