Flip of mitotic spindle has disastrous consequences for epithelial cells
Stowers Institute for Medical Research Associate Investigator Matt Gibson, Ph.D., and his team use simple animal systems like fruit flies and sea anemones to investigate how epithelial cells maintain order while getting jostled by cell division. New findings from his lab published in the July 21 advance online issue of Nature demonstrate that the way the mitotic spindle — the machinery that separates chromosomes into daughter cells during cell division — aligns relative to the surface of the cell layer is essential for the maintenance of epithelial integrity. It also hints at a surprising way that cells initiate a gene expression program seen in invasive cancers when that process goes awry. The study employs live imaging of fruit fly imaginal discs, simple larval tissues that ultimately give rise to the adult wing…