“Animal cells undergo rapid rounding during mitosis, ensuring proper chromosome segregation, during which an outward rounding force abruptly increases upon prometaphase entry and is maintained at a constant level during metaphase. Initial cortical tension is generated by the actomyosin system to which both myosin motors and actin network architecture contribute. However, how cortical tension is maintained and its physiological significance remain unknown.”*
In their publication “Cdk1-mediated DIAPH1 phosphorylation maintains metaphase cortical tension and inactivates the spindle assembly checkpoint at anaphase” Koutarou Nishimura et al. describe the uncovering of a previously unknown mechanism by which Cdk1 coordinates cortical tension maintenance and SAC inactivation at anaphase onset.*
For the AFM force measurements described in this publication NANOSENSORS™ TL-CONT tipless AFM cantilevers were used. The spring constant of individual cantilevers was determined by a thermal method.
NANOSENSORS™ tipless cantilever
*Koutarou Nishimura, Yoshikazu Johmura, Katashi Deguchi, Zixian Jiang, Kazuhiko S. K. Uchida, Narumi Suzuki, Midori Shimada, Yoshie Chiba, Toru Hirota, Shige H. Yoshimura, Keiko Kono & Makoto Nakanishi
Cdk1-mediated DIAPH1 phosphorylation maintains metaphase cortical tension and inactivates the spindle assembly checkpoint at anaphase
Nature Communications, volume 10, Article number: 981 (2019)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08957-w
Please follow this external link to the full article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08957-w
Open Access The article “Cdk1-mediated DIAPH1 phosphorylation maintains metaphase cortical tension and inactivates the spindle assembly checkpoint at anaphase” by Koutarou Nishimura et al. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.