A cytochemical staining procedure for succinate dehydrogenase activity in pre-ovulatory mouse oocytes embedded in low gelling temperature agarose.

We describe a cytochemical staining procedure for succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity in pre-ovulatory mouse oocytes. The oocytes were embedded in low gelling temperature agarose and treated with caffeine before cytochemical staining in the presence of nitro blue tetrazolium (NBT), phenazinemethosulfate (PMS), and succinate. This resulted in intense staining of the oocytes by formazan precipitate. The level of aspecific formazan production in the absence of succinate was very low. We applied the procedure to oocytes matured in vitro and found that the location of the formazan precipitate as a result of SDH activity correlated well with the location of mitochondria. The chromatin of the cytochemically stained oocytes could subsequently be analyzed by means of the DNA-specific fluorochrome DAPI. In pre-ovulatory oocytes, we found a correlation between chromatin organization and the location of mitochondria: in oocytes with an intact germinal vesicle the mitochondria were uniformly distributed in the cytoplasm, as shown by fine grains of formazan precipitate. In oocytes with condensed chromatin the mitochondria apparently had clustered, because the formazan precipitate was more coarse in these cells.