• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 1988

In order to investigate the role of nuclei and cytoplasm in early embryogenesis, interspecific nuclear transplantation was carried out Nuclei of one species of amphibian was transplanted into enucleated egg of another species. In interspecific hybrids between Rana species, development was arrested before or right after the dorsal lip formation. In intergenetic hybrids between Rana, Xenopus and axolod, developmental arrest took place at late blastula stage. Comparing the developmental capacity of each nudeocytoplasmic hybrid, the more distantly related the species, the earlier does development arrest. The general rule is that nuclear transfers between any amphibian species will form a regulary cleaved late blastula. Two plausible factors relate to limitation of tite developmental capacity of nudeocytaplasmic hybrids. One is an irreversible change in grafted nuclei and another is tunctional incompatibility between the recipient cytoplasm and transplanted nucleus. The later is postulated a more possible cause of the arrestrnent.