Publication
Mechanisms of spindle positioning: cortical force generators in the limelight
Abstract
Correct positioning of the spindle governs placement of the cytokinesis furrow and thus plays a crucial role in the partitioning of fate determinants and the disposition of daughter cells in a tissue. Converging evidence indicates that spindle positioning is often dictated by interactions between the plus-end of astral microtubules that emanate from the spindle poles and an evolutionary conserved cortical machinery that serves to pull on them. At the heart of this machinery lies a ternary complex (LIN-5/GPR-1/2/Gα in Caenorhabditis elegans and NuMA/LGN/Gαi in Homo sapiens) that promotes the presence of the motor protein dynein at the cell cortex. In this review, we discuss how the above components contribute to spindle positioning and how the underlying mechanisms are precisely regulated to ensure the proper execution of this crucial process in metazoan organisms.
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Related concepts (34)
Cytokinesis
Cytokinesis (ˌsaɪtoʊkɪˈniːsɪs) is the part of the cell division process during which the cytoplasm of a single eukaryotic cell divides into two daughter cells. Cytoplasmic division begins during or after the late stages of nuclear division in mitosis and meiosis. During cytokinesis the spindle apparatus partitions and transports duplicated chromatids into the cytoplasm of the separating daughter cells. It thereby ensures that chromosome number and complement are maintained from one generation to the next and that, except in special cases, the daughter cells will be functional copies of the parent cell.
Spindle apparatus
In cell biology, the spindle apparatus is the cytoskeletal structure of eukaryotic cells that forms during cell division to separate sister chromatids between daughter cells. It is referred to as the mitotic spindle during mitosis, a process that produces genetically identical daughter cells, or the meiotic spindle during meiosis, a process that produces gametes with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell. Besides chromosomes, the spindle apparatus is composed of hundreds of proteins.
Dynein
Dyneins are a family of cytoskeletal motor proteins that move along microtubules in cells. They convert the chemical energy stored in ATP to mechanical work. Dynein transports various cellular cargos, provides forces and displacements important in mitosis, and drives the beat of eukaryotic cilia and flagella. All of these functions rely on dynein's ability to move towards the minus-end of the microtubules, known as retrograde transport; thus, they are called "minus-end directed motors".
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