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

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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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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