Modified mitosis in the chick embryo

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Abstract
A study of cell division in the chick embryo has revealed in striated muscle and in the early stages of all the principal tissues and organs a process, followed by the greater percentage of the dividing nuclei, which resembles amitosis, but is undoubtedly a highly modified form of mitosis. This process is designated ‘modified mitosis’. The belief that this is essentially mitotic rests upon the fact that a number of discrete bodies may be distinguished in the one or two chromatin masses of each nucleus. These masses, or ‘mulberries’, might easily be mistaken for nucleoli or karyosomes were it not that they exhibit division by elongation and constriction. These structures probably represent masses of minute and closely clumped chromosomes in somatic number dividing in a qualitative and a quantitative fashion. As additional evidence there are present between the dividing mulberries exceedingly fine fibers which possibly represent an attempt at spindle fibers. Neither centrosomes nor asters are present, but since, if present, they would have to be of the intranuclear variety (the nuclear membrane never disintegrating) their absence is immaterial. The nucleus divides not by constriction, but by the formation of a nuclear plate. This process of modified mitosis is probably a device which favors the speed of nuclear proliferation necessary to such rapidly growing tissues.

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