Assembly of a protein sharing epitopes with sperm dynein heavy chains into meiotic spindle in the prometaphase starfish oocyte

Starfish oocyte meiosis provides a good system for studying the mechanism for prometaphase chromosome movement. Since a protein sharing epitopes with sperm dynein might be a force generator for mitosis, the contribution of such a protein was assessed in this movement. Specific antibodies to heavy chains (HCs) and intermediate chains (ICs) of dynein subunits were affinity-purified from whole antidynein serum. We confirmed that the oocytes contain several polypeptides identical to sperm dynein subunits. The anti-HCs binding to in situ antigen was examined in the oocytes permeabilized with detergent at appropriate stages of maturation with special reference to tubulin and chromosomes, and the meiotic apparatus-establishing process was described in terms of a force generator (oocyte dynein). Before resumption of maturation, dynein HCs were particularly associated with prophase chromosomes within the germinal vesicle (GV). After GV breakdown, there was a striking local accumulation of dynein HCs in the "fading GV" (nuclear matrix). When chromosomes were pulled toward the central area between 2 asters, dynein was accumulated at first at the presumptive equator and then moved to the poles, showing uneven localization on the meiotic spindle.