Evidence for unaltered structure and in vivo assembly of microtubules in transformed cells.

By using immunoperoxidase cytochemistry at the light and electron microscopic level, microtubles were visualized in a number of "normal" nontumorigenic and transformed tumorigenic cell lines. A well-defined cytoplasmic microtubule complex exists in both normal and transformed interphase cells. The distribution of this complex closely correlates with the cell shape and the degree of cell spreading. Our data support the idea that these properties determine the pattern of the cytoplasmic microtubule complex, rather than the reverse. Ultrastructural observations of immunoperoxidase-stained tumor cells showed characteristic microtubules in cells in which the microtubules were poorly resolved at the light microscopic level. The results suggest that microtubule assembly and structure are unaltered in transformed cells. However, this conclusion does not exclude the possibility that some of the microtubules' functions might be impaired in a yet-unknown way.