The Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The intricate dance of cell division, by which the genetic code is transferred to daughter cells, is little understood. In a new study, researchers in Paul Selvin's group, in collaboration with scientists at Columbia University, reveal how a key motor protein choreographs chromosome movements at a critical stage of cell division.

Just how chromosomes move during mitosis, when they must line up at the middle of a parent cell to allow for their separation between the two daughter cells, is of fundamental importance to biology. Errors in coordination result in disease or cell death.

Selvin's group made single-molecule measurements of centromeric protein E (CENP-E), which plays a key role in the movement of chromosomes during mitosis. They showed that CENP-E takes 8-nm hand-over-hand steps, analogous to the motor protein kinesin-1. (Read the paper.)

Click on the image to play a movie of CENP-E, labeled with a quantum dot, walking along an axeoneme in vitro.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Grants GM068625 (to PRS) and AR048565 (to SSR). The conclusions presented are those of the authors and not necessarily of the National Institutes of Health.