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Self-organization of microtubules into bipolar spindles around artificial chromosomes in Xenopus egg extracts

Nature volume 382, pages 420–425 (1996)Cite this article

Abstract

Functional nuclei and mitotic spindles are shown to assemble around DNA-coated beads incubated in Xenopus egg extracts. Bipolar spindles assemble in the absence of centrosomes and kinetochores, indicating that bipolarity is an intrinsic property of microtubules assembling around chromatin in a mitotic cytoplasm. Microtubules nucleated at dispersed sites with random polarity rearrange into two arrays of uniform polarity. Spindle-pole formation requires cytoplasmic dynein-dependent translocation of microtubules across one another. It is proposed that spindles form in the absence of centrosomes by motor-dependent sorting of microtubules according to their polarity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mitotic Spindle Group in the Cell Biology Program, EMBL, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    Rebecca Heald, Régis Tournebize, Anthony Hyman & Eric Karsenti

  2. Gene Expression Program, EMBL, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    Thiemo Blank, Raphael Sandaltzopoulos & Peter Becker

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  1. Rebecca Heald
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  2. Régis Tournebize
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  3. Thiemo Blank
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  6. Anthony Hyman
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Heald, R., Tournebize, R., Blank, T. et al. Self-organization of microtubules into bipolar spindles around artificial chromosomes in Xenopus egg extracts. Nature 382, 420–425 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/382420a0

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