spectrinlike proteins in plant nuclei we analysed the presence and localization of spectrinlike proteins in nuclei of various plant tissues using several antierythrocyte spectrin antibodies on isolated pea nuclei and nuclei in cells western blots of extracted purified pea nuclei show a crossreactive pair of bands at 220240 kda typical for human erythrocyte spectrin and a prominent 60 kda band immunolocalization by means of confocal laser scanning microscopy reveals spectrinlike proteins in distinct spots equally distributed in the nucleoplasm and over the nuclear periphery independent of the origin of the antispectrin antibodies used in some nuclei tracks of spectrinlike proteins are also observed no signal is present in nucleoli the amount and intensity of signal increases when nuclei were extracted successively with detergents dnase i and rnase a and high salt indicating that the spectrinlike protein is associated with the nuclear matrix the labelling is similar in nuclei of various plant tissues these data are the first that show the presence and localization of spectrinlike epitopes in plant nuclei where they may stabilize specific interchromatin domains