Carbonyl cyanide p-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone (FCCP) induced in pig kidney embryo cells a loss of rhodamine 123 staining of mitochondria in 2-3 min. Within 5 min after FCCP inoculation of cells prestained with rhodamine 123, the diffuse staining of the cytoplasm was absent. FCCP did not induce changes in the cytoplasmic microtubule complex, but induced nonrandom (preferentially perpendicular to the substrate surface) orientation of maternal centrioles. Nonrandom orientation of maternal centrioles occurred 10 min after treatment and remained for 2 hr. At 30 min after introduction of the drug, FCCP treatment increased the mean number of pericentriolar satellites on maternal centrioles and the frequency of primary cilia. The percentage of centrioles perpendicular to the substrate induced by FCCP treatment was slightly increased by disruption of microtubules and slightly diminished by disruption of microfilaments. In both cases centrioles were oriented significantly differently from random (P < 0.01). These results suggest that microtubules are neither involved in the signaling pathway from plasma membrane to the centriole, nor do they anchor the centrioles perpendicular to the substrate, as proposed by Albrecht-Buehler and Bushnell (Experimental Cell Research 120, 1979). (C) 1994 academic Press, Inc.