Spindle mechanics and dynamics during mitosis in Drosophila

Mijung Kwon, Jonathan M. Scholey

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

42 Scopus citations

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster is an excellent model for studying mitosis. Syncytial embryos are amenable to time-lapse imaging of hundreds of synchronously dividing spindles, allowing the quantitation of spindle and chromosome dynamics with unprecedented fidelity. Other Drosophila cell types, including neuroblasts, cultured cells, spermatocytes and oocytes, contain spindles that differ in their design, providing cells amenable to different types of experiments and allowing identification of common core mechanisms. The function of mitotic proteins can be studied using mutants, inhibitor microinjection and RNA interference (RNAi) to identify the full inventory of mitotic proteins encoded by the genome. Here, we review recent advances in understanding how ensembles of mitotic proteins coordinate spindle assembly and chromosome motion in this system.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)194-205
Number of pages12
JournalTrends in Cell Biology
Volume14
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2004

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank Frank McNally, Tin Tin Su and Ingrid Brust–Mascher for helpful discussions and comments. Our work on mitotic motors in the Drosophila embryo is supported by NIH grant GM-55507.

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