Desenvolupament del nuclèol en la proliferació de cèl.lules multinucleades

The method we have developed to produce multinucleate cells in onion root meristems serves as a basis for studying the nucleolar behaviour in nuclei sharing a common cytoplasm. Nuclear aneuploidy is a characteristic of these dividing cells, which present as a whole a 4n chromosome complement distributed among several unbalanced nuclei. Attention will be driven to estimate nucleolar architecture changes by using conventional and cytochemical electron microscopy techniques. In attempts to correlate nucleolar activity with different abilities to synthesize DNA, high resolution autoradiographic techniques will be performed. Finally, the immunocytochemical localization of nucleolar B-36 protein might provide further information about the relationships between structural organization of the nucleolus and nuclear functional activity.