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Journal of Electron Microscopy Advance Access published online on October 26, 2009
Journal of Electron Microscopy, doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfp054
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Microscopy. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The spindle pole body of the pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus neoformans: variation in morphology and positional relationship with the nucleolus and the bud in interphase cells

Masashi Yamaguchi1,*, Sondip Kumar Biswas2, Yoichi Kuwabara3, Misako Ohkusu1, Masatoshi Shimizu1 and Kanji Takeo1

1 Medical Mycology Research Center, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8673, Japan
2 Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA
3 Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8670, Japan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: yama{at}faculty.chiba-u.jp

The spindle pole body (SPB) in the interphase cell of the pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus neoformans was studied in detail by freeze-substitution and serial ultrathin sectioning electron microscopy. The SPB was located on the outer nuclear envelope and appeared either dumbbell- or bar shaped. The dumbbell-shaped SPBs were 228–365 nm long with amorphous spheres on each end, each sphere being 78–157 nm in diameter. The bar-shaped SPBs were 103–260 nm long and 32–113 nm thick. They consisted of filamentous materials. The dumbbell-shaped SPBs were more frequent (61%) than the bar-shaped SPBs. The bar-shaped SPBs may be regarded as dumbbell-shaped SPBs whose spherical parts became sufficiently small. There seemed to be no relationship between the SPB shape and the cell cycle stage of G1–G2, since both types of SPB appeared not only in unbudded cells but also in budded cells and their appearance seems to be random. It is not clear at present whether morphological changes between dumbbell- and bar shapes have any physiological function. The SPB tended to be localized away from the nucleolus (141° ± 44°), but localized randomly to the bud (97° ± 50°). The present study highlights the necessity of observing a large number of micrographs in three dimensions to describe accurately the ultrastructure of the SPB in yeast.

Keywords     spindle pole body, nucleolus, bud, Cryptococcus neoformans, freeze-substitution

Received     14 August 2009, accepted 24 September 2009


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