CYTOGENETIC INVESTIGATIONS OF TESTICULAR- TUMOR CELLS .1. ABERRATIONSOF THE SPINDLE APPARATUS

The morphology of the spindle apparatus was analysed in 3 different tr ansformed cell lines of testicular tumors. Six cell lines with a norma l karyotype were taken as controls. The extension of different cell st ages was investigated. In the control, the extension of prophase to me taphase stages was a typical 1:1 ratio. Pathological spindles occurred in 1.11% with two types of aberrant spindles: altered spindles in 1.0 6% and multipolar spindles in 0.05%; one tripolar spindle was evaluate d in 783 analysed mitoses. A degenerate spindle apparatus was not foun d. In contrast to the controls, the testicular tumor cell lines showed an altered extention of prophase to metaphase. The length of metaphas es was increased, the length of prophases decreased. We found a propha se to metaphase ratio of 1:5. The frequency of pathological spindles w as higher compared to the controls. In the tumor cells, 10.4% patholog ical spindles were analysed. Three different types of aberrations were found: 8.3% altered spindles, 1.8% multipolar spindles and in 0.3% a degenerate spindle apparatus. Multipolar spindles were either 3-, 4-, 5-, 6- or more-polar. One tripolar spindle was analysed in a late telo phase stage as a rare event. Aberrant spindles correlated with the occ urrence of atypical distribution of the chromatin.