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Spindle assembly in Drosophila neuroblasts and ganglion mother cells

Nature Cell Biology volume 2, pages 54–56 (2000)Cite this article

In most animal mitotic cells, spindle formation is mediated by the centrosomes, which nucleate radial arrays of microtubules called asters. The fast-growing (plus) ends of astral microtubules are then captured by the kinetochores of chromosomes, allowing the formation of a bipolar spindle1. In contrast, in meiotic cells of females from several animal species and in mitotic cells of higher plants, in which there are no centrosomes, microtubules grow from multiple sites around the chromatin and are then focused into a bipolar spindle through the combined action of both plus-end- and minus-end-directed microtubule-associated molecular motors1,2. Although it has been suggested that centrosome-containing and centrosome-free cells share common mechanisms for spindle-pole assembly3,4, in most centrosome-containing cells the removal of centrosomes prevents spindle formation2,5. Here we analyse mitotic division of neuroblasts and ganglion mother cells (GMCs) from the Drosophila central nervous system. The neuroblasts are stem cells that divide asymmetrically, producing another neuroblast and a smaller GMC, which is itself cleaved once into a pair of equally sized neurons6. We show that both neuroblasts and GMCs, which normally contain centrosomes, can form functional anastral spindles when their centrosomes are removed as a result of mutations in the asterless (asl) gene. Thus, these cells can switch from a centrosome-based to a centrosome-independent spindle-assembly pathway.

GMC prophases, however, exhibit two small asters nucleated by equally sized centrosomes (Fig. 2A, a). As the nuclear envelope breaks down and GMCs enter prometaphase, the chromosomes of these cells become embedded into a mass of microtubules that do not appear to be nucleated by the centrosomes (Fig. 2A, b). As mitosis progresses, these randomly orientated microtubules converge towards the centrosomes and progressively focus into a bipolar spindle (Fig. 2A, c, d). At metaphase and anaphase, the GMC spindle poles are rather sharp and all of the microtubules in contact with the centrosomes are directed towards the chromatin; microtubules radiating from the centrosomes in the opposite direction cannot be detected (Fig. 2A, d, e). The centrosomes remain at the spindle poles and maintain a constant size throughout anaphase and telophase (Fig. 2A, e, f).

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Figure 1: Mitotic division of wild-type and asterless neuroblasts.
Figure 2: Mitotic division of wild-type and asterless GMCs.
Figure 3: γ-Tubulin immunostaining in wild-type and asl neuroblasts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. C. Kaufman and W. G. Whitfield for anti-centrosomin and anti-γ tubulin antibodies, respectively; and J. G. Wakefield for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported in part by a TMR grant from the European Community.

Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.B.

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  1. Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Istituto Pasteur-Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Universita’ di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, P. le Aldo Moro 5, Rome, 00185, Italy

    Silvia Bonaccorsi, Maria Grazia Giansanti & Maurizio Gatti

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  1. Silvia Bonaccorsi
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  2. Maria Grazia Giansanti
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  3. Maurizio Gatti
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Correspondence to Silvia Bonaccorsi.

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Bonaccorsi, S., Giansanti, M. & Gatti, M. Spindle assembly in Drosophila neuroblasts and ganglion mother cells. Nat Cell Biol 2, 54–56 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/71378

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