TY - JOUR
T1 - C. elegans chromosomes connect to centrosomes by anchoring into the spindle network
AU - Redemann, Stefanie
AU - Baumgart, Johannes
AU - Lindow, Norbert
AU - Shelley, Michael
AU - Nazockdast, Ehssan
AU - Kratz, Andrea
AU - Prohaska, Steffen
AU - Brugués, Jan
AU - Fürthauer, Sebastian
AU - Müller-Reichert, Thomas
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Drs D. Needleman, S. Roldán-Vargas, F. Jülicher and A.A. Hyman for discussions. We are also grateful to M. Merkel for microtubule segmentation and the electron microscopy facility at MPI-CBG (Dresden) for technical assistance. The Müller-Reichert lab received funding from the Human Frontier Science Programme (RGP 0034/2010), the German Research Foundation (DFG Grant MU 1423/8-1) and from the Saxonian State Ministry for Science and the Arts (SMWK). J. Baumgart received funding from the European Comission’s 7th framework Programme grant Systems Biology of Mitosis (FP7_HEALTH-2009-241548/MitoSys). The Brugués lab acknowledges funding from the Human Frontier Science Programme (CDA 74/2014). S. Prohaska was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG Grant PR 1226/4-1) and the FEI Visualization Sciences Group. The Shelley lab acknowledges support from the (USA) National Institutes of Health (1R01GM104976-01), the National Science Foundation (DMS-1463962), and the Human Frontiers Science Programme for support of S. Fürthauer.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - The mitotic spindle ensures the faithful segregation of chromosomes. Here we combine the first large-scale serial electron tomography of whole mitotic spindles in early C. elegans embryos with live-cell imaging to reconstruct all microtubules in 3D and identify their plus- and minus-ends. We classify them as kinetochore (KMTs), spindle (SMTs) or astral microtubules (AMTs) according to their positions, and quantify distinct properties of each class. While our light microscopy and mutant studies show that microtubules are nucleated from the centrosomes, we find only a few KMTs directly connected to the centrosomes. Indeed, by quantitatively analysing several models of microtubule growth, we conclude that minus-ends of KMTs have selectively detached and depolymerized from the centrosome. In toto, our results show that the connection between centrosomes and chromosomes is mediated by an anchoring into the entire spindle network and that any direct connections through KMTs are few and likely very transient.
AB - The mitotic spindle ensures the faithful segregation of chromosomes. Here we combine the first large-scale serial electron tomography of whole mitotic spindles in early C. elegans embryos with live-cell imaging to reconstruct all microtubules in 3D and identify their plus- and minus-ends. We classify them as kinetochore (KMTs), spindle (SMTs) or astral microtubules (AMTs) according to their positions, and quantify distinct properties of each class. While our light microscopy and mutant studies show that microtubules are nucleated from the centrosomes, we find only a few KMTs directly connected to the centrosomes. Indeed, by quantitatively analysing several models of microtubule growth, we conclude that minus-ends of KMTs have selectively detached and depolymerized from the centrosome. In toto, our results show that the connection between centrosomes and chromosomes is mediated by an anchoring into the entire spindle network and that any direct connections through KMTs are few and likely very transient.
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U2 - 10.1038/ncomms15288
DO - 10.1038/ncomms15288
M3 - Article
C2 - 28492281
AN - SCOPUS:85025456307
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 8
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
M1 - 15288
ER -