Megalospermatocytes in the human testis exhibit asynapsis of chromosomes.
Testis biopsies of three infertile patients were identified, which showed a predomination of megalospermatocytes in the seminiferous tubules. Megalospermatocytes are very large primary spermatocytes indicating a spermatogenic arrest. Because of the high percentage of these germ cells it was possible to apply a whole-mount spreading technique to investigate the chromosomal pairing behaviour in prophase I of meiosis. It could be shown that most of the megalospermatocytes exhibited extensive chromosomal asynapsis, suggesting that a characteristic meiotic disorder may give rise to reduced fertility, or even infertility.
Johannisson
R
R
Institute of Pathology, University of Lübeck, Germany.
Schulze
W
W
Holstein
A F
AF
D000328:Adult; D023902:Chromosome Pairing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D013090:Spermatocytes / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D013737:Testis / Q000166:cytology*