Ss. Craig et Ng. Brink, A MUTATION (DOSACH) IN DROSOPHILA WHICH AFFECTS ASTER FORMATION AND NUCLEAR MIGRATION DURING CLEAVAGE, Biology of the cell, 87(1-2), 1996, pp. 45-54
Here we describe a new mutant, dosach (dos), in Drosophila melanogaste
r. In the mutant, centrosomes divide and initiate spindle formation si
milar to that seen in wild-type embryos. Nevertheless, mutant embryos
form cleavage spindles that lack visible asters and display abnormal m
orphology, including mono- and tri-polar spindles, spindle chains and
incorrect alignment. Irregular nuclear migration is also observed in m
utant embryos, and this may suggest that astral microtubules are impor
tant for spindle spacing during cleavage and also in maintaining the i
ntegrity of the mitotic apparatus. Confocal microscopy has been used t
o correlate organization of microtubules, centrosomal proteins and chr
omosomes in wild-type and dosach (dos) embryos.