CONFOCAL LASER MICROSCOPY AND 3-DIMENSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEUS-ASSOCIATED MICROTUBULES IN THE DIVISION PLANE OF VACUOLATED PLANT-CELLS

The way in which transvacuolar strands radiating from the cell nucleus reorganize to form the phragmosome, within which division occurs, has been thoroughly studied in epidermal explants of Nautilocalyx lynchii. In recent years it has been established that the movement of the nucleus into the centre of large vacuolated cells such as these, in preparation for division, involves actin filaments. In the present study, the appearance and gradual reorganization of nucleus-associated microtubules (NAMTs) over the premitotic period is described. Epidermal explants fluorescently labelled with anti-tubulin were optically sectioned by confocal scanning laser microscopy, the sections reconstructed by an image processing computer and projected as rotating stereo pairs. This revealed that the NAMTs are a major component of the phragmosome, and that they change from a radiating to a planar distribution concomitantly with the 'bunching' of cortical MTs to form the pre-prophase band. The continuity of the two sets of MTs indicates that the band contains newly polymerized microtubules. Other recent studies on the division of vacuolated cells are reviewed and factors affecting the alignment of the division plane are discussed.