[Spheres from the oocyte nuclei of the house cricket and the damselfly contain pre-mRNA splicing and pre-rRNA processing factors].

By the method of immunocytochemistry it has been shown that spheres from cricket and damselfly oocyte nuclei contain small nuclear RNA (snRNA) and fibrillarin, a protein involved in pre-rRNA processing. Besides, in cricket oocyte spheres coilin has been revealed, a protein which is part of intranuclear structures in somatic cells called coiled bodies. By the method of nucleic acid hybridization in situ, U1, U2 and U6 snRNAs were identified in spheres of cricket oocytes. Concentration of U2 snRNA was much higher compared to U1 and U6 snRNA. After a longtime (24h) incubation of cricket's ovary in the medium containing 3H-uridin, spheres remained unlabelled by contrast with a heavily labelled karyoplasm. Thus, the data obtained show a homology between spheres from the studied insects and coiled bodies of somatic cells, spheres from amphibian oocytes, and prenucleolar bodies in nuclei formed in vitro in Xenopus laevis egg extracts after adding DNA.