An electron-microscope study of centrioles in differentiating motor neuroblasts
Mature neurons with centrioles were first described at the end of the nineteenth century and have been observed in many animals (see Cajal, 1911; Ariëns Kappers, Huber & Crosby, 1936). As mitosis rarely, if ever, occurs after morphological differentiation of the neuroblast begins, the function of the centrioles in nerve cells posed a problem which has yet to be resolved. Held (1909) described centrosomes in differentiating neuroblasts as being associated with the ‘fibrillogenous zone’, which suggests a role for the centriole in the differentiation of neurofibrils. Recently, electron-microscopic observations have refocused attention on the possibility of morphological and functional association between the centrioles of nerve cells and the fibrillar elements, especially neurotubules, which appear to be similar in fine structure to microtubules of other types of cells and to spindle tubules of the mitotic apparatus.