Mitotic microtubules in mammalian neurogenesis Center for Developmental Biology

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Category	Seminar
Date and Time	2012-03-02 16:00 - 17:00
Venue	Seminar Room A7F
Speaker	Felipe Mora-Bermúdez
Affiliation	Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden,Germany
Title	Mitotic microtubules in mammalian neurogenesis
Poster	click here to download(PDF)
Host	Fumio Matsuzaki
Summary	Asymmetric cell division is a key event in mammalian neurogenesis. In the developing cerebral cortex, polarized cellular components, such as the apical and basal processes, can be distributed symmetrically or asymmetrically during the divisions of neuroepithelial and radial glial cells, the primary cortical neural stem cells. These differences in distribution have been broadly linked to differences in cell fate and also to the integrity of the developing cortical wall. The cellular mechanisms that regulate the dynamics and symmetry levels of cell division in mammalian neurogenesis are, however, still poorly understood. We are investigating the role of the mitotic spindle, a central player in mitosis, in the asymmetric divisions of mouse neocortical neural stem cells. We show that populations of mitotic microtubules can influence cleavage plane movement and orientation. We also show that mitotic microtubules could modify division symmetry and this influence may change the localization and fate of the stem cell progeny.