. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. 270 REPORTS FROM THE MBL GENERAL SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS By combining the real-time (and faster-than-video rate) di- rect-view capability of the microlens-equipped scanning-disk confocal unit with digital unsharp masking, we believe that bi- ologists now have available a powerful new tool for imaging and analyzing dynamic events in cellular and molecular studies. We thank T. Akiyama of Yokogawa Electric Co., R. Rotten- fusserofC. Zeisslnc.,and M. Christianson of Princeton Instru- ments Co. for loan of equipment, and B. Amos of C
. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. 270 REPORTS FROM THE MBL GENERAL SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS By combining the real-time (and faster-than-video rate) di- rect-view capability of the microlens-equipped scanning-disk confocal unit with digital unsharp masking, we believe that bi- ologists now have available a powerful new tool for imaging and analyzing dynamic events in cellular and molecular studies. We thank T. Akiyama of Yokogawa Electric Co., R. Rotten- fusserofC. Zeisslnc.,and M. Christianson of Princeton Instru- ments Co. for loan of equipment, and B. Amos of Cambridge Univ. and M. Terasaki of MBL for providing fluorescent sam- ples. Supported in part by NIH grant R37 GM31617. Literature Cited 1. Pawley, J., ed. 1995. Handbook oj Biological Conlbcal Micros- copy. 2nd edition Plenum Press, New York. Reference: Biol. Bull. 191: 270-271. (October, 1996) Birefringence Measurements of the Actin Bundle in the Acrosomal Processes of Limulus Sperm KaoruKatoh, Katsuyuki Yamada, Fwnio Oosawa, and Rudolf Oldenbourg (Marine Biological Laboratory) Actin bundles play an important role in many kinds of cell activities, such as muscle contraction, cytoplasmic streaming, cell migration, and acrosomal reaction. Using our modified po- larized light microscope (1), we have measured the birefrin- gence of well-characterized actin bundles to estimate the bire- fringence of a single actin filament. The actin bundles in Limulus sperm contain a nearly con- stant number of actin filaments (80 filaments in the basal re- gion) (2). The actin bundle is discharged from the head of the sperm after an acrosomal reaction and thus is very easy to iden- tify. sperm shows two types of discharge of acrosomal process—true (Fig. 1A) and false (Fig. IB). True discharge is part of the normal acrosomal reaction, but false discharge is induced by some stress (for example a temperature increase). In both cases, the discharged process consists of an actin bundle and
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