CELL SHAPE AND WALL PATTERN IN RELATION TO CYTOPLASMIC ORGANIZATION IN PEDIASTRUM SIMPLEX

P. simplex is a single-pronged, fenestrated species of Pediastrum. Comparison is made in regard to cell differentiation and structure with P. boryanum, a 2-pronged, unfenestrated species, with emphasis on the origin of cell wall pattern and the regulation of cell shape. The characteristic wall pattern is initiated with the deposition of plaques of wall material of the outer wall layer when zoospores have assembled in the colony. The pattern is postulated to be templated in the plasma membrane. The inner, thicker wall layer is fibrillar and deposited from vesicles derived from the golgi apparatus. In P. simplex 2–4 dictyosomes are present in contrast to the single dictyosome of P. boryanum. The dictyosomes lie at the concave inner face of the nucleus. Blebs of its ribosome-free outer membrane are contributed to the forming face of the golgi apparatus. Parallel microtubules underlie the plasma membrane in the aggregating zoospores and disappear after the initiation of wall formation. The possible role of microtubules and other organelles in the determination of cell shape in Pediastrum is discussed.