A key component of cell division comes to light
The division of a cell in two requires the assembly of the mitotic spindle, an extremely complex structure, which is the result of the coordinated action of a multitude of proteins and a finely tuned balance of their activities. A large part of the time that a cell requires to divide is devoted to assembling the mitotic spindle, which, superficially, resembles a ball of thread with the shape of a rugby ball. The most abundant components of the spindle are the microtubules. "By labelling the ends of thousands of these fine filaments, which are indispensable and extremely dynamic and variable, we have finally been able to follow their distribution and movement during the assembly of the mitotic spindle," explains Jens Lüders, a cell biologist from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The breakthrough appeared yesterday in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology.