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XB-ART-17934
Nature 1996 Aug 01;3826590:420-5. doi: 10.1038/382420a0.
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Self-organization of microtubules into bipolar spindles around artificial chromosomes in Xenopus egg extracts.

Heald R , Tournebize R , Blank T , Sandaltzopoulos R , Becker P , Hyman A , Karsenti E .


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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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Species referenced: Xenopus
Genes referenced: dnai1

References :
Hyams, Look ma, no chromosomes! 1996, Pubmed