Cytochemistry and Polarization Microscopy of Amphibian Sperm Cell Nuclei Presumed to Differ in Basic Protein Composition

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The pattern of availability of free DNA phosphates, and the kind of DNA-protein complex arrangement, both induced by nuclear basic proteins, and the richness in arginine residues in these proteins were investigated cytochemically and cytophysically in spermatozoa of the South-American Hylidae species, Hyla fuscovaria and Hyla biobeba. The aim was to demonstrate differences at the level of sperm histones in two species of Hyla until recently considered to be congeneric. The results indicated differences in the spermatozoal nuclear basic proteins and DNA-protein complexes when the two species were compared. The spermatozoa of Hyla biobeba were assumed to be likely to contain a Bloch's “type 3” protein type (intermediate sperm basic protein), similarly to Hyla species of North and Central America. On the other hand, the data obtained for the spermatozoa of Hyla fuscovaria indicated that they contain a protamine or protamine-like protein, differing from Hyla biobeba and Hyla species of North and Central America. It is suggested that the differences reported here may be genusspecific, since Hyla fuscovaria has recently been reclassified as Scinax fuscovaria based on parameters other than sperm histone types. These findings are in agreement with the general view of a wide variability in sperm nuclear proteins in the Anura group.