Nuclear positioning: A matter of life
Résumé
Cell organization, and in particular how organelles are distributed in the cell, is often used by physio-pathologists to visually identify cell types in an organism. Behind this simple fact, it suggests that the positioning of sub-cellular structures is not occurring randomly but by active manners. Three hundred years ago, Leeuwenhoek reported the existence of a structure which will be then called the nucleus. It is the biggest organelle in eukaryotic cells, and has been described to be actively displaced in a large range of organisms and tissues. One of the first nuclear movements in an organism life occurs just after fecondation, when the two pronuclei moves towards each other in the egg [1]. After this first discovery, other nuclear movements has been described, such as in plants in 1903 [2] or occurring during neuroepithelium development in 1935 [3]. The latter was called interkinetic nuclear movement (INM). Whether nuclear movement has a function for cell fate and also how this is achieved needed to be further investigated. Several groups have tackled this question in different organisms and cell systems; it reveals similarities in the modus operandi between them but also particularities that could be associated with specific requirements for cell function. INM, for example, has been observed in other tissues and organisms, and defects in this movement lead to severe developmental defects, such as Lissencephaly. In Drosophila, inhibiting nuclear movement in the oocyte affects the polarity and therefore the future segmentation of the embryo
Domaines
Médecine humaine et pathologieOrigine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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