Chapter 10: GFP Fusions to a Microtubule Motor Protein to Visualize Meiotic and Mitotic Spindle Dynamics in Drosophila

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Despite intense studies for more than a century, the basis of the movements of the spindle and chromosomes during cell division is still not clearly established. A major breakthrough in recent years has been the discovery that microtubule motors are intimately involved in all aspects of chromosome and spindle movement during meiosis and mitosis. One of the microtubule motors now known to be required for spindle assembly and maintenance during meiosis in Drosophila oocytes is Ncd. Ncd also functions during mitosis in early embryos to maintain attachment of centrosomes to spindle poles and chromosomes to spindle fibers, preventing loss of chromosomes at the metaphase–anaphase transition. The use of ncd-gfp (green fluorescent protein) to visualize spindles is minimally perturbing to the cells and represents an advance over previous methods that have been used to label spindle microtubules. These have involved the injection into live cells of fluorescently labeled tubulin that is incorporated into the spindles.

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