Role of karyoplasm in the emergence of capacity of egg cytoplasm to induce DNA synthesis in transplanted sperm nuclei.

The behaviour of sperm nuclei was studied both in the cytoplasm of intact toad oocytes undergoing maturation and the cytoplasm of oocytes matured without germinal vesicles. The behaviour of the nuclei of pronase-treated sperm injected in the mature egg cytoplasm was shown to be exactly similar to that of the sperm nucleus after fertilization, i.e. they swelled, synthesized DNA, and divided. No changes in such sperm nuclei could be detected in the cytoplasm of the oocytes matured without germinal vesicles.