Temperature-Independent Period Immediately After Fertilization in Sea Urchin Eggs

Solubility Changes of Proteins in Sea Urchin Eggs upon Fertilization

The results presented in this paper give evidence of changes in solubility occurring in a protein fraction of the eggs of Arbacia lixula upon fertilization. The electrophoretic analysis indicates that it is only one part of one of the components of the KCl fraction that undergoes the change. However, under some experimental conditions (freezing and thawing of the KCl fraction or extraction of t...

Polyphosphoinositide metabolism during the fertilization wave in sea urchin eggs.

A transient increase in intracellular free calcium is believed to be the signal responsible for the stimulation of the egg metabolism at fertilization and the resumption of the cell cycle. We have studied how the polyphosphoinositides (PPI) turn over at fertilization in sea urchin eggs, in order to determine the relationship between the metabolism of these lipids and the calcium signal. We comp...

Membrane and lipid dynamics at fertilization in sea urchin eggs

Actin, microvilli, and the fertilization cone of sea urchin eggs

Sea urchin eggs and oocytes at the germinal vesicle stage were fixed at various times after insemination, and thin sections were examined. Actin filaments can first be found in the cortical cytoplasm 1 min after insemination, and by 2 min enormous numbers of filaments are present. At these early stages, the filaments are only occasionally organized into bundles, but one end of many filaments co...

Initiation of two-way cortical traffic after fertilization in sea urchin eggs

Oocytes may remain in the ovary for months or years in a quiescent state from which they may be aroused within seconds by fertilization or activation. As a result of activation, the cortex of the sea urchin egg undergoes a radical reorganization that transforms it from a quiescent structure to one that undergoes rapid microvillar formation (2, 3) and membrane recycling (14). Initiation of this ...