Weird small spheres stained by DAPI (not nuclei!) in tissue - (Apr/09/2013 )

Hi,

I have been staining some pituitary sections. My tissue comes from animals with a mutation in a hormone sectreted from the pituitary.

The cells that express the mutant protein are sometimes also associated with these bright DAPI-stained spheres (which are not nuclei), but this is not seen in the wildtype animals. I have attached a picture in black and white of the DAPI channel on the confocal microscope at 100x. My best guess would be that these nuclei are apoptotic but the spheres look different to other apoptotic nuclei I have seen before. Has anyone seen anything like this before?

Best regards,
Kristen.

These look similar to the nuclei you see when you treat cells with taxol, I think it is something to do with microtubule synthesis or stabilization.