Dynamics of chromosomes and artificial kinetochore beads in mouse oocytes and embryos
Description
Faithful chromosome segregation requires biorientation, where the pair of kinetochores on the chromosome establish bipolar microtubule attachment. The integrity of the kinetochore, a macromolecular complex built on centromeric DNA, is required for biorientation, but components sufficient for biorientation remain unknown. The authors show that tethering the outer kinetochore heterodimer NDC80-NUF2 to the surface of apolar microbeads establishes their biorientation-like
state in mouse cells. NDC80-NUF2 microbeads align at the spindle equator and self-correct alignment errors. The alignment is associated with stable bipolar microtubule attachment and is independent of the outer kinetochore proteins SPC24-SPC25, KNL1, the Mis12 complex, inner kinetochore proteins,
and Aurora. Larger microbeads align more rapidly, suggesting a size-dependent biorientation mechanism.
Release date
2025-11-28
Updated date
-
License
CC BY 4.0
Kind
Image data
based on Experiment
Number of Datasets
181
( Image datasets: 181,
Quantitative data datasets: 0 )
Kohei Asai, Yuanzhuo Zhou, Osamu Takenouchi, Tomoya S Kitajima (2024) Artificial kinetochore beads establish a biorientation-like state in the spindle., Science (New York, N.Y.), Volume 385, Number 6715, pp. 1366-1375
Published in 2024 Sep 20
(Electronic publication in Sept. 19, 2024, midnight )
(Abstract) Faithful chromosome segregation requires biorientation, where the pair of kinetochores on the chromosome establish bipolar microtubule attachment. The integrity of the kinetochore, a macromolecular complex built on centromeric DNA, is required for biorientation, but components sufficient for biorientation remain unknown. Here, we show that tethering the outer kinetochore heterodimer NDC80-NUF2 to the surface of apolar microbeads establishes their biorientation-like state in mouse cells. NDC80-NUF2 microbeads align at the spindle equator and self-correct alignment errors. The alignment is associated with stable bipolar microtubule attachment and is independent of the outer kinetochore proteins SPC24-SPC25, KNL1, the Mis12 complex, inner kinetochore proteins, and Aurora. Larger microbeads align more rapidly, suggesting a size-dependent biorientation mechanism. This study demonstrates a biohybrid kinetochore design for synthetic biorientation of microscale particles in cells.
Tomoya S Kitajima
, RIKEN
, Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Laboratory for Chromosome Segregation
, Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Laboratory for Chromosome Segregation