Neuroblasts in the developing Drosophila CNS asymmetrically localize the cell fate determinants Numb and Prospero as well as prospero RNA to the basal cortex during mitosis. The localization of Prospero requires the function of inscuteable and miranda, whereas prospero RNA localization requires inscuteable and staufen function. We demonstrate that Miranda contains multiple functional domains: a...

Aggregation of damaged or misfolded proteins is a protective mechanism against proteotoxic stress, abnormalities of which underlie many aging-related diseases. Here, we show that in asymmetrically dividing yeast cells, aggregation of cytosolic misfolded proteins does not occur spontaneously but requires new polypeptide synthesis and is restricted to the surface of ER, which harbors the majority...

The plane of division of granule neuron progenitors (GNPs) was analysed with respect to the pial surface in P0 to P14 cerebellum and the results showed that there was a significant bias towards the plane of cell division being parallel to pial surface across this developmental window. In addition, the distribution of β-Catenin in anaphase cells was analysed, which showed that there was a signif...

The roles of cell polarity and the first asymmetric cell division during early embryogenesis in apical-basal cell fate determination remain unclear. Previously, a novel Brassica napus microspore embryogenesis system was established, by which rape exine-dehisced microspores were induced by physical stress. Unlike traditional microspore culture, cell polarity and subsequent asymmetric division ap...

Polarity is a shared feature of most cells. In epithelia, apical-basal polarity often coexists, and sometimes intersects with planar cell polarity (PCP), which orients cells in the epithelial plane. From a limited set of core building blocks (e.g. the Par complexes for apical-basal polarity and the Frizzled/Dishevelled complex for PCP), a diverse array of polarized cells and tissues are generat...

Cell polarity is crucial for many functions including cell migration, tissue organization and asymmetric cell division. In animal cells, cell polarity is controlled by the highly conserved PAR (PARtitioning defective) proteins. par genes have been identified in Caenorhabditis elegans in screens for maternal lethal mutations that disrupt cytoplasmic partitioning and asymmetric division. Although...

Spiralian embryos are found in a large group of invertebrate phyla but are largely uncharacterized at a molecular level. These embryos are thought to be particularly reliant on autonomous cues for patterning, and thus represent potentially useful models for understanding asymmetric cell division. The series of asymmetric divisions that produce the micromere quartets are particularly important f...

Asymmetric cell division can produce daughter cells with different developmental fates and is often accompanied by a difference in cell size. A number of recent genetic and in vivo imaging studies in Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans have begun to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the rearrangements of the cytoskeleton that result in eccentrically positioned cleavage planes. As a result, ...

Drosophila neuroblasts undergo asymmetric divisions along the apicobasal axis to produce two daughter cells of unequal size and different developmental fate. Inscuteable (Insc) protein functions as part of an apically localized complex to coordinate orientation of the mitotic spindle and basal sorting of cell fate determinants. insc mRNA transcripts also localize apically in neuroblasts, yet th...

The phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domain of the cell fate determinant Numb is involved in the formation of multiple protein complexes in vivo and can bind a diverse array of peptide sequences in vitro. To investigate the structural basis for the promiscuous nature of this protein module, we have determined its solution structure by NMR in a complex with a peptide containing an NMSF sequence der...