1,2-Dioctanoylglycerol accelerates or retards mitotic progression in Tradescantia stamen hair cells as a function of the time of its addition.

We have treated living, intact stamen hair cells from the spiderwort plant, Tradescantia virginiana, with 0.5 microgram/ml or 60 micrograms/ml 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol, a potent and permeant activator of protein kinase C, and have observed the rates of progression of mitosis from prophase through anaphase. We have found that in addition to the concentration used, the time of initial treatment with 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol defines the response by the cells. The cells rapidly undergo nuclear envelope breakdown when this diglyceride is added in very late prophase, 0 to approximately 8 min prior to the time of normal nuclear envelope breakdown. Anaphase onset occurs 28 min after nuclear envelope breakdown, rather than after the 33 min interval observed in untreated cells. Rapid progression through metaphase is also observed if cells are treated with 0.5 microgram/ml 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol during prometaphase, up to 15 min after nuclear envelope breakdown. The addition of 0.5 microgram/ml 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol in late metaphase, approximately 26 min after nuclear envelope breakdown, results in sister chromatid separation slightly ahead of its normal time, 33 min after nuclear envelope breakdown, and in precocious cell plate vesicle aggregation, 3-5 min earlier than that observed in untreated cells. Treatment of cells with 60 micrograms/ml of 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol at any point during the interval from 0 to approximately 5 min prior to nuclear envelope breakdown results in precocious entry into anaphase. If cells are treated with either 0.5 microgram/ml or 60 micrograms/ml 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol earlier than 20 min before nuclear envelope breakdown, they do not enter mitosis, but instead revert to interphase without dividing. When 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol is added at other times during mitosis, the rate of subsequent mitotic progression is dramatically slowed; the cells require greater than 55 min to progress from nuclear envelope breakdown to anaphase onset, though once in anaphase, the cells progress onward to cytokinesis at normal rates. Treatments o of cells with 1,3-dioctanoylglycerol at any point during prophase, prometaphase, or metaphase are without effect on the rate of subsequent mitotic progression. The shifts in response by cells treated at specific times with 1,2-dioctanoylglycerol during mid- and late metaphase may be indicative of the existence of one or more regulatory switch points (i.e., checkpoints) just prior to anaphase onset.