Cell News—Signaling OK to exit mitosis when spindle is aligned

Zygote with one aligned anaphase spindle. From Figure 7 in Falk et. al. http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.14036

Zygote with one aligned anaphase spindle. From Figure 7 in Falk et. al. http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.14036

In budding yeast if the mitotic spindle isn’t properly aligned, the cells won’t divide. But whether the cell signaling causes a halt in mitosis when the spindle is misoriented, or whether a properly oriented spindle causes mitosis to proceed was not known. Now Jill Falk in ASCB member Angelika Amon’s lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as ASCB members Kerry Bloom at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Soni Lacefield at Indiana University, and colleagues, used new inducible yeast mutants to solve the puzzle. They found that cell division proceeds when the spindle is properly aligned. Published in eLife.

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