Microtubule (MT) cytoskeleton of pepper male-sterile microsporocytes during meiosis was examined to characterise the defects during microsporogenesis by comparison with that of fertile ones. In sterile microsporocytes, after prophase I, abnormal arrangement of MTs occurred until the end of meiosis. At metaphase I, about 10% of microsporocytes initially formed abnormal spindles, including monopolar spindle, non-polar spindle with short kinetochore MTs, and atypical bipolar spindles with two half arrays of MTs not on the same plane. Then, the homologous chromosomes could not separate, or they could move towards the two poles with lagged chromosomes at anaphase I. At telophase I, anisotropic short MTs were formed around the two sister nuclei, or the interzonal MTs depolymerised and nuclei agglutinated. About 10% of microsporocytes degraded in advance from metaphase I to telophase I. About 90% of microsporocytes proceeded to meiosis II. At metaphase II, MTs constructed two spindles at a shallow angle with upper and lower assignment, or four spindles with different size. During anaphase II and telophase II, four nuclei were arranged in a non-tetrahedral distribution with unevenly interzonal MTs between two nuclei; or the cell formed more than four nuclei with different size. The cytokinesis formed the aberrant microspores with different size, irregular shape, and even different-sized nuclei. Therefore, the defects of MTs during microsporogenesis in the male-sterile pepper affected the process of meiosis and cytokinesis, leading to some microsporocytes degraded in advance and the microspores at the end of meiosis completely decayed.

辣椒雄性不育微孢子细胞在减数分裂过程中的微管（MT）细胞骨架通过与可育性比较，来表征微孢子发生过程中的缺陷。在无菌的微孢子细胞中，在I期前，MT的异常排列一直发生到减数分裂结束。在中期I，大约有10％的微孢子细胞最初形成异常纺锤体，包括单极纺锤体，短动粒MTs的非极性纺锤体以及具有两个MT不在同一平面上的两个半阵列的非典型双极纺锤体。然后，同源染色体不能分开，或者它们可以在后期I移向带有滞后染色体的两个极点。在后期I，在两个姐妹核周围形成各向异性的短MT，或者区域间MT发生解聚并凝集。大约10％的微孢子细胞从中期I到末端I提前降解。大约90％的微孢子细胞进行到减数分裂II。在中期II，MT构造了上下左右两个浅轴心轴或四个不同大小的心轴。在后期II和末期II期间，四个原子核呈非四面体分布，两个原子核之间的区域间MT分布不均匀。或细胞形成了四个以上大小不同的核。胞质分裂形成了大小不等，形状不规则，甚至核大小不同的异常小孢子。因此，雄性不育辣椒微孢子发生过程中MTs的缺陷影响减数分裂和胞质分裂过程，导致一些微孢子细胞提前降解，减数分裂末期的小孢子完全腐烂。