Resinless section immunogold electron microscopy of karyo-cytoskeletal frameworks of eukaryotic cells cultured in vitro. Absence of a salt-stable nuclear matrix from mouse plasmacytoma MPC-11 cells

The karyo-cytoskeleton of cells cultured in vitro was investigated employing resinless section immunogold electron microscopy. Cells were entrapped in low-melting agarose, sequentially extracted with various buffers and digested with nucleases to obtain karyo-cytoskeletal frameworks and reacted with specific primary and gold-conjugated secondary antibodies or gold-conjugated protein A to decorate structural elements of these frameworks. Following embedment of the gold-labeled residual cell structures in diethylene glycol distearate and their sectioning, the embedding material was removed with organic solvent and the sections were finally subjected to CO2 critical point drying. When this technique was applied to mouse skin fibroblasts (MSF), it revealed a dense and salt-stable intranuclear network of fibrogranular material. Antibodies directed against vimentin and lamin B detected a cytoplasmic meshwork of intermediate filaments (IFs) and a nuclear lamina, respectively; the latter, however, only after removal of chromatin from nuclei by nuclease digestion of DNA. Intranuclear filaments free of adhering globular material were morphologically very similar to cytoplasmic vimentin filaments. By contrast, mouse plasmacytoma MPC-11 cells lacking detectable amounts of cytoplasmic IF proteins and lamins A and C were devoid of a salt-stable internal nuclear matrix. The same holds true for MPC-11 cells that had been treated with the phorbol ester 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate to induce vimentin synthesis and establish a cytoplasmically extended IF network. These findings were in accordance with the biochemical behavior of Triton X-100-treated MSF and MPC-11 cells and their appearance in immunofluorescence microscopy upon extraction with high ionic strength buffer. While the chromatin was quantitatively retained in the residual cell structures derived from MSF cells, in those obtained from MPC-11 cells the nuclear lamina was disrupted and the chromatin was released from the nuclei, suggesting that MPC-11 cells lack the salt-stable nuclear scaffold to which chromatin is normally anchored.