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A membranous spindle matrix orchestrates cell division

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 11, pages 529–535 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Eukaryotic cell division uses morphologically different forms of mitosis, referred to as open, partially open and closed mitosis, for accurate chromosome segregation and proper partitioning of other cellular components such as endomembranes and cell fate determinants. Recent studies suggest that the spindle matrix provides a conserved strategy to coordinate the segregation of genetic material and the partitioning of the rest of the cellular contents in all three forms of mitosis.

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Figure 1: Metaphase spindles in three forms of mitosis.
Figure 2: Two types of spindle matrices in open mitosis, as revealed by physical perturbations.
Figure 3: Localization of spindle matrix components.
Figure 4: A unified model of the spindle matrix in patterning cell division.

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Acknowledgements

I thank B. Goodman for spindle drawings and B. Guo, K. Jung and members of the Zheng laboratory for helpful comments. I apologize to colleagues whose work could not be cited owing to space limitations. The work on mitosis in the Y.Z. laboratory is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM056312). Y.Z. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The image in the middle panel of figure 3 part c is courtesy of L. Ma.

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  1. Yixian Zheng is at the Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institute for Science and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA. zheng@ciwemb.edu,

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Zheng, Y. A membranous spindle matrix orchestrates cell division. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 11, 529–535 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm2919

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