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Published 6 November 2006. doi:10.1083/jcb.200511112
The Rockefeller University Press, 0021-9525 $8.00
JCB, Volume 175, Number 3, 369-375
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A new method reveals microtubule minus ends throughout the meiotic spindle



Kendra S. Burbank1,2, Aaron C. Groen2, Zachary E. Perlman2, Daniel S. Fisher1, and Timothy J. Mitchison2

1 Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 03138
2 Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115

Correspondence to Kendra S. Burbank: burbank{at}fas.harvard.edu

Anastral meiotic spindles are thought to be organized differently from astral mitotic spindles, but the field lacks the basic structural information required to describe and model them, including the location of microtubule-nucleating sites and minus ends. We measured the distributions of oriented microtubules in metaphase anastral spindles in Xenopus laevis extracts by fluorescence speckle microscopy and cross-correlation analysis. We localized plus ends by tubulin incorporation and combined this with the orientation data to infer the localization of minus ends. We found that minus ends are localized throughout the spindle, sparsely at the equator and at higher concentrations near the poles. Based on these data, we propose a model for maintenance of the metaphase steady-state that depends on continuous nucleation of microtubules near chromatin, followed by sorting and outward transport of stabilized minus ends, and, eventually, their loss near poles.

Abbreviation used in this paper: MT, microtubule.


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