Redemann, S;
Pecreaux, J;
Goehring, NW;
Khairy, K;
Stelzer, EH;
Hyman, AA;
Howard, J;
(2010)
Membrane invaginations reveal cortical sites that pull on mitotic spindles in one-cell C. elegans embryos.
PLoS One
, 5
(8)
, Article e12301. 10.1371/journal.pone.0012301.
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Abstract
Asymmetric positioning of the mitotic spindle in C. elegans embryos is mediated by force-generating complexes that are anchored at the plasma membrane and that pull on microtubules growing out from the spindle poles. Although asymmetric distribution of the force generators is thought to underlie asymmetric positioning of the spindle, the number and location of the force generators has not been well defined. In particular, it has not been possible to visualize individual force generating events at the cortex. We discovered that perturbation of the acto-myosin cortex leads to the formation of long membrane invaginations that are pulled from the plasma membrane toward the spindle poles. Several lines of evidence show that the invaginations, which also occur in unperturbed embryos though at lower frequency, are pulled by the same force generators responsible for spindle positioning. Thus, the invaginations serve as a tool to localize the sites of force generation at the cortex and allow us to estimate a lower limit on the number of cortical force generators within the cell.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Membrane invaginations reveal cortical sites that pull on mitotic spindles in one-cell C. elegans embryos. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0012301 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012301 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2010 Redemann et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: JP was supported by the Human Frontier Science Program (LT00563/2005-C), NWG was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a Marie Curie Grant (219286) from the European Commission. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. |
| Keywords: | Actomyosin, Animals, Biomechanics, Caenorhabditis elegans, Cell Membrane, Microscopy, Microtubules, Mitosis, Molecular Imaging, Time Factors |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1392992 |
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