Early cleavage to formation of the unilaminar blastocyst in the marsupial Antechinus stuartii: Ultrastructure

The development of Antechinus stuartii from the 2-cell stage to the blastocyst stage in vivo was examined by routine transmission electron microscopy. The 2-8-cell stages had a similar organization of organelles, whereas the 16- to 32-cell stages had pluriblast cells and trophoblast cells forming an epithelium closely apposed to the zona pellucida. Specialized cell-zona plugs were formed at the 8-cell stage, and primitive cell junctions appeared in later conceptuses. The cytoplasmic organelles included mitochondria, lysosomes, aggregates of smooth endoplasmic reticulum, lipid and protein yolk bodies and fibrillar arrays, possibly contractile in function. Nuclei had uniformly-dispersed dense chromatin. Nucleoli of 2-4-cell conceptuses were dense, compact and fibrillar, and those of 8-cell conceptuses and later conceptuses were finely granular and became progressively reticulated. The embryonic genome is probably not switched on before the 8-cell stage. Sperm tails were detected in cells in several early conceptuses. The yolk mass had the same organelles as cells. Centrioles were discovered for the first time in marsupial conceptuses. These were prominently situated at a spindle pole in a 32-cell blastomere and were associated with a nucleus and sperm tail at the 4-cell stage. It is very likely that the paternal centrosome is inherited at fertilization and perpetuated in Antechinus embryos during cleavage.