Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Polarity

In the plane

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 13, pages 606–607 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Mud, Rok and Moe seem to be involved in ensuring the correct orientation of the spindle poles

Yu-ichiro Nakakima and colleagues used Drosophila melanogaster wing disc epithelium to search for proteins that regulate the planar orientation of the mitotic spindle. They first showed that RNA inhibition (RNAi) of mud, a D. melanogaster homologue of nuclear mitotic apparatus (NUMA), which is known to function in spindle orientation in mammalian cells, disrupted the planar orientation of spindle poles in wing disc epithelium. Agents that disrupted the actomyosin cytoskeleton or RHO kinase (Rok), which phosphorylates the actomyosin skeleton to enable cell rounding during mitosis, also disrupted spindle pole orientation, as did RNAi-mediated knockdown of moesin (moe), which crosslinks the plasma membrane to the actomyosin cytoskeleton. Thus, Mud, Rok and Moe seem to be involved in ensuring the correct orientation of the spindle poles. Septate junctions, which correlate with the position of spindle poles and define the mitotic zone, contain among other proteins the tumour suppressors Scribbled (Scrib) and Discs large (Dlg). Knockdown of scrib using RNAi resulted in 40% of the dividing cells having misoriented spindles, and dlg RNAi produced similar results.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Nakajima, Y.-I. et al. Epithelial junctions maintain tissue architecture by directing planar spindle orientation. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12335 (2013)

Download references

Authors
  1. Nicola McCarthy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

McCarthy, N. In the plane. Nat Rev Cancer 13, 606–607 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3585

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3585

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Cancer

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Cancer newsletter — what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Cancer