Autoradiography of soluble [2-14C]thymidine derivatives during meiosis and microsporogenesis in Lilium anthers

A dry autoradiographic method suitable for locating soluble tracers has been used to follow the fate of [2-14C]thymidine supplied to detached buds and inflorescences of Lilium henryi and a related cultivar. During the interval from the archesporial phase until pachytene, the derivative (or derivatives) reaching the anther loculi moved freely into the meiocytes. Subsequently, the tracer was excluded from the mother cells until the dissolution of the tetrads. The young spores readily took up tracer in the thecal fluid upon their release, and yielded strongly localized autoradiographs. These observations are interpreted as indicating that access of materials to the meiocytes is related to the formation of cytoplasmic links between mother cells in the early meiotic prophase, and the later severance of these links through the growth of the isolating callose wall which comes to invest the tetrads. Judged from the tracer retained in preparations extracted with trichloroacetic acid, thymidine incorporation occurs mostly in the premeiotic and early leptotene period, although there is some slight evidence of incorporation later in prophase. In the tapetal cells, incorporation occurred in most of the stages tested, but there was no indication of a transfer of labelled materials from tapetum to spores in the post-meiotic period.