Mitosis stiffened by moesin
Figure 1. Mitotic spindle and cortical defects in moesin-depleted floating S2R+ cells (left) are rescued by incubation with concavalin A (right), which increases cortical stiffness. Cells were stained for F-actin (red), microtubules (green) and phospho-histone 3 (blue). More details are available in the original paper. This article was reviewed in Nature Cell Biology (‘News and Views’) and Developmental Cell (‘Ferming up the Plasma Membrane’). References to the article and reviews may be found below.
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The group depleted cells from moesin using RNA interference and observed distinct mitotic defects – cells were prevented from rounding up and exhibited an extremely unstable cortex throughout mitosis. They also demonstrated that Concavalin A (ConA) can be used to increase the cortical stiffness from the outside of the cell. It was observed that ConA treatment resulted in the rescue of normal spindle morphogensis and mitotic progression in moesin depleted cells. However, towards the end of the mitosis a stiff cell cortex mediated by ConA prevented cell elongation and normal cytokinesis indicating that the nanomechanical role of moesin is dynamic and time dependent. This work presents direct evidence that the nanomechanical environment of cell can directly influence its biology.