TY - JOUR
T1 - Mechanisms of Mitotic Spindle Assembly
AU - Petry, Sabine
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2016 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/6/2
Y1 - 2016/6/2
N2 - Life depends on cell proliferation and the accurate segregation of chromosomes, which are mediated by the microtubule (MT)-based mitotic spindle and ∼200 essential MT-associated proteins. Yet, a mechanistic understanding of how the mitotic spindle is assembled and achieves chromosome segregation is still missing. This is mostly due to the density of MTs in the spindle, which presumably precludes their direct observation. Recent insight has been gained into the molecular building plan of the metaphase spindle using bulk and single-molecule measurements combined with computational modeling. MT nucleation was uncovered as a key principle of spindle assembly, and mechanistic details about MT nucleation pathways and their coordination are starting to be revealed. Lastly, advances in studying spindle assembly can be applied to address the molecular mechanisms of how the spindle segregates chromosomes.
AB - Life depends on cell proliferation and the accurate segregation of chromosomes, which are mediated by the microtubule (MT)-based mitotic spindle and ∼200 essential MT-associated proteins. Yet, a mechanistic understanding of how the mitotic spindle is assembled and achieves chromosome segregation is still missing. This is mostly due to the density of MTs in the spindle, which presumably precludes their direct observation. Recent insight has been gained into the molecular building plan of the metaphase spindle using bulk and single-molecule measurements combined with computational modeling. MT nucleation was uncovered as a key principle of spindle assembly, and mechanistic details about MT nucleation pathways and their coordination are starting to be revealed. Lastly, advances in studying spindle assembly can be applied to address the molecular mechanisms of how the spindle segregates chromosomes.
KW - Cell division
KW - Cytoskeleton
KW - Microtubule
KW - Microtubule nucleation
KW - Microtubule-associated protein
KW - γ-tubulin ring complex
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U2 - 10.1146/annurev-biochem-060815-014528
DO - 10.1146/annurev-biochem-060815-014528
M3 - Article
C2 - 27145846
AN - SCOPUS:84974736065
SN - 0066-4154
VL - 85
SP - 659
EP - 683
JO - Annual review of biochemistry
JF - Annual review of biochemistry
ER -