ARTICLE

THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE XY CHROMOSOMAL PAIR IN HUMAN SPERMATOCYTES

A. J. Solari ¹ and Laura L. Tres ¹

¹ From the Centro de Investigaciones sobre Reproduccion, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The spatial reconstruction of the XY pair of chromosomes from human spermatocytes has been made by the study of serial sections 1000 A in thickness. The sex pair during zygotene-pachytene forms a condensed mass of chromatin that has two filamentous, electron-opaque cores: the long and the short core. During early pachytene both cores have a common ending region, about 0.4–0.8 µ long. This common end is a synaptonemal complex, and each of the cores forms a lateral element of that complex. The cores become more convoluted during middle pachytene forming "ringlike bodies." Nucleoli from spermatocytes have three distinct regions: (a) granular; (b) dense fibrillar; and (c) clear intermediate. Occasional association of the XY pair and the heteropycnotic "basal knobs" results in apparent association of nucleoli and the sex pair in a minority of cells. The evidence presented is interpreted as a strong support of the hypothesis of homologous regions in the human XY pair.

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Carrell, D. T. (2008). The Clinical Implementation of Sperm Chromosome Aneuploidy Testing: Pitfalls and Promises. J Androl 29: 124-133 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• McKusick, V., Ruddle, F. (1977). The status of the gene map of the human chromosomes. Science 196: 390-405 [Abstract]  
• Moses, M., Counce, S., Paulson, D. (1975). Synaptonemal complex complement of man in spreads of spermatocytes, with details of the sex chromosome pair. Science 187: 363-365 [Abstract]  

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