A critical evaluation of the use of filipin-permeabilized rat hepatocytes to study functions of the endoplasmic reticulum in situ

We have used transmission (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH; EC 1.1.1.27) to evaluate two published procedures which use filipin to render isolated rat hepatocytes permeable to ionic substrates. Cells treated by the procedure of Jorgenson and Nordlie retained less than 10 per cent of their LDH. TEM revealed severe damage to the internal structure of these cells, which included swelling, disintegration and extensive vesicularization of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Hepatocytes treated with filipin by the procedure of Gankema et al. retained 65-75 per cent of their LDH and displayed incomplete but highly variable permeability to Trypan blue. SEM revealed the loss of microvilli, other signs of swelling, and the presence of large lesions in the plasma membrane. TEM revealed signs of cell swelling, but the nuclei and the mitochondria were only moderately altered. The rough ER was not swollen, but significant fragmentation was evident and characteristic stacks of lamellar ER were never seen. We conclude that useful information about the functions of the ER in situ cannot be obtained from studies of filipin-treated cells. Our results indicate that retention of LDH is not a sufficient criterion of preservation of cell morphology and that staining with Trypan blue may significantly underestimate the permeability of cells to small ionic metabolites.     

Discovery of the pre-erythrocytic stages of a saurian malaria parasite, hypnozoites, and a possible mechanism for the maintenance of chronic infections throughout the life of the host

Re-examination of tissue sections from four Takydromus tachydromoides (Sauria: Lacertidae) naturally infected with Plasmodium sasai found liver parenchymal cells, containing uninucleate parasites which may correspond to the hypnozoite stage of primate malaria parasites, schizonts and segmenters in parenchymal cells, and hepatic macrophages which contained numerous schizonts. Following destaining of the original H&E and prolonged restaining with warm Giemsa stain, encysted schizonts, protected by a hyaline wall, were discovered in the connective tissue or capillary endothelium of lung, liver, brain, heart, pancreas, kidney, intestine wall, testis, and both intra- and intermuscularly in the femoral muscles. Unencysted schizonts in the pulmonary endothelium apparently represent the phanerozoic stages, which, following encystment in the various tissues, are recognized as a new stage in the life cycle of reptilian malarial parasites, the chronozoic schizonts. A hypothesis is presented to describe the life cycle of P. sasai, which may be characteristic of other saurian malaria parasites. It interprets the sequence of pre-erythrocytic stages found as follows: sporozoites enter hepatic parenchymal cells where some may become dormant as hypnozoites, and others form cryptozoic schizonts. The cryptozoites parasitize hepatic macrophages and form metacryptozoic schizonts. Metacryptozoites produce phanerozoic schizonts in the capillary endothelium and connective tissue of the lung and other organs. Phanerozoites and possibly metacryptozoites then invade the erythrocytes to begin the erythrocytic cycle. Some of the phanerozoites in endothelium, connective tissue and skeletal muscle become encysted as chronozoic schizonts, and their progeny, chronozoites, renew the erythrocytic cycle throughout the life of the host and produce seasonal relapses of gametocytemia, in spring, at the end of hibernation by the lizard.     

Domes,arches and urchins: The skeletal architecture of echinoids (Echinodermata)

Summary A combination of simple membrane theory and statical analysis has been used to determine how stresses are carried in echinoid skeletons. Sutures oriented circumferentially are subject principally to compression. Those forming radial zig-zags are subject to compression near the apex and tension near the ambitus. Radial and circumferential sutures in Eucidaris are equally bound with collagen fibers but in Diadema, Tripneustes, Psammechinus, Arbacia and other regular echinoids, most radial sutures are more heavily bound, and thus stronger in tension. Psammechinus, Tripneustes and several other echinoids have radial sutures thickened by ribs which increase the area of interlocking trabeculae. Ribs also increase flexural stiffness and carry a greater proportion of the stress. Further, ribs effectively draw stress from weaker areas pierced by podial pores, and increase the total load which can be sustained.Allometry indicates that regular echinoids become relatively higher at the apex as size increases, thus reducing ambital stresses. Some spatangoids with very high domes (eg Agassizia) maintain isometry, but others (eg Meoma) become flatter with size. Both holectypoids (Echinoneus) and cassiduloids (Apatopygus) maintain a constant height to diameter relationship. Flattening, and consequently ambital tensile stress, is greatest in the clypeasteroids. In this group the formation of internal buttresses which preferentially carry stress, reaches maximum development. A notable exception, however, is the high domed Clypeaster rosaceus.In this analysis it was assumed that local buckling or bending does not occur. The test of some echinoids (e.g. Diadematoida) have relatively wide sutures swathed in collagen, which allows local deformation. Others (e.g. Arbacia) have rigid sutures with reduced collagen. In Psammechinus and other members of the Order Echinoida, in addition to rib formation, inner and outer surface trabeculae are thickened so that the individual plates are stiffened. Some spatangoids (Meoma, Paleopneustes) have extensive sutural collagen, but the cassiduloid Apatopygus has collagen confined to junctions of sutures, and elsewhere the joints are strengthened and stiffened by fusion of trabeculae. Fusion of surface trabeculae is almost complete in the holectypoid, Echinoneus, and the sutures are obscured.     

A comparative description of mitochondrial DNA differentiation in selected avian and other vertebrate genera

Levels of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence divergence between species within each of several avian (Anas, Aythya, Dendroica, Melospiza, and Zonotrichia) and nonavian (Lepomis and Hyla) vertebrate genera were compared. An analysis of digestion profiles generated by 13-18 restriction endonucleases indicates little overlap in magnitude of mtDNA divergence for the avian versus nonavian taxa examined. In 55 interspecific comparisons among the avian congeners, the fraction of identical fragment lengths (F) ranged from 0.26 to 0.96 (F = 0.46), and, given certain assumptions, these translate into estimates of nucleotide sequence divergence (p) ranging from 0.007 to 0.088; in 46 comparisons among the fish and amphibian congeners, F values ranged from 0.00 to 0.36 (F = 0.09), yielding estimates of P greater than 0.070. The small mtDNA distances among avian congeners are associated with protein-electrophoretic distances (D values) less than approximately 0.2, while the mtDNA distances among assayed fish and amphibian congeners are associated with D values usually greater than 0.4. Since the conservative pattern of protein differentiation previously reported for many avian versus nonavian taxa now appears to be paralleled by a conservative pattern of mtDNA divergence, it seems increasingly likely that many avian species have shared more recent common ancestors than have their nonavian taxonomic counterparts. However, estimates of avian divergence times derived from mtDNA- and protein-calibrated clocks cannot readily be reconciled with some published dates based on limited fossil remains. If the earlier paleontological interpretations are valid, then protein and mtDNA evolution must be somewhat decelerated in birds. The empirical and conceptual issues raised by these findings are highly analogous to those in the long-standing debate about rates of molecular evolution and times of separation of ancestral hominids from African apes.      

Methods for computing the standard errors of branching points in an evolutionary tree and their application to molecular data from humans and apes

Statistical methods for computing the standard errors of the branching points of an evolutionary tree are developed. These methods are for the unweighted pair-group method-determined (UPGMA) trees reconstructed from molecular data such as amino acid sequences, nucleotide sequences, restriction-sites data, and electrophoretic distances. They were applied to data for the human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, and gibbon species. Among the four different sets of data used, DNA sequences for an 895-nucleotide segment of mitochondrial DNA (Brown et al. 1982) gave the most reliable tree, whereas electrophoretic data (Bruce and Ayala 1979) gave the least reliable one. The DNA sequence data suggested that the chimpanzee is the closest and that the gorilla is the next closest to the human species. The orangutan and gibbon are more distantly related to man than is the gorilla. This topology of the tree is in agreement with that for the tree obtained from chromosomal studies and DNA-hybridization experiments. However, the difference between the branching point for the human and the chimpanzee species and that for the gorilla species and the human-chimpanzee group is not statistically significant. In addition to this analysis, various factors that affect the accuracy of an estimated tree are discussed.      

Detection of Selenium Deposits in Escherichia coli by Electron Microscopy

Cells of Escherichia coli will reduce sodium selenite to elemental selenium. Examination by electron microscopy of E. coli cultures grown in the presence of sodium selenite show selenium deposited on the cell membrane and cell wall but not in the cytoplasm.