Cytological mechanisms of gynogenesis and sperm incorporation in unreduced diploid eggs of the clonal loach, Misgurnus anguillicaudatus (Teleostei: Cobitidae)

Abstract

The loach Misgurnus anguillicaudatus comprises diploid clonal, triploid and diploid-triploid mosaic individuals in a wild population on Hokkaido island, Japan. When diploid eggs of clonal loaches are fertilized by haploid sperm of normal bisexual loaches, both diploid clonal and non-diploid aclonal individuals occur in the progeny. Flow cytometry and microsatellite analyses revealed that the occurrence of triploid, diploid-triploid and other progeny was essentially due to the genetic incorporation of sperm to diploid clonal genomes of unreduced eggs. In this study, we examined the influence of water temperature from fertilization to early embryogenesis on frequencies of diploid clonal and other progeny and observed that progeny of three out of four clonal females examined exhibited approximately constant rates of diploid clonal individuals (54.2-68.9%) at hatching stage. Thus, no drastic increase of non-diploid progeny was detected. However, the 28 degrees C group of the fourth clonal female gave significantly lower rate (28.1%) of diploid clonal progeny, suggesting that this temperature might be a critical or a borderline temperature inducing sperm incorporation. We also examined the cytological process by which diploid clonal and other aclonal progeny develop after fertilization. In some fertilized eggs, the sperm nucleus remained condensed throughout fertilization and early embryogenesis and never fused with the female pronucleus. This cytological observation concludes that clonal eggs develop by the mechanism of gynogenesis. However, some other eggs showed the cytological process of syngamy between the female pronucleus and an accidentally formed male nucleus, suggesting the formation of triploid progeny. The syngamy between an accidentally activated sperm nucleus with a male pronucleus-like structure and nucleus of a blastomere of gynogenetically developing clonal diploid embryo might produce a diploid-triploid mosaic individual.