The dramatic cell shape changes during cytokinesis require the interplay between microtubules and the actomyosin contractile ring, and addition of membrane to the plasma membrane. Numerous membrane-trafficking components localize to the central spindle during cytokinesis, but it is still unclear how this machinery is targeted there and how membrane trafficking is coordinated with cleavage furro...

Drosophila development depends on stable boundaries between cellular territories, such as the embryonic parasegment boundaries and the compartment boundaries in the imaginal discs. Patterning in the compound eye is fundamentally different: the boundary is not stable, but moves (the morphogenetic furrow). Paradoxically, Hedgehog signaling is essential to both: Hedgehog is expressed in the poster...

The actomyosin ring generates force to ingress the cytokinetic cleavage furrow in animal cells, yet its filament organization and the mechanism of contractility is not well understood. We quantified actin filament order in human cells using fluorescence polarization microscopy and found that cleavage furrow ingression initiates by contraction of an equatorial actin network with randomly oriente...

Cytokinesis is a dynamic and plastic process involving the co-ordinated regulation of many components. Accordingly, many proteins, including the putative scaffold protein anillin, localize to the cleavage furrow and are required for cytokinesis, but how they function together is poorly understood. Anillin can bind to numerous other furrow components, including F-actin, septins and myosin II, bu...

Cytokinesis, the final step of cell division, begins with the formation of a cleavage furrow. How the mitotic spindle specifies the furrow at the equator in animal cells remains unknown. Current models propose that the concentration of the RhoGEF ECT2 at the spindle midzone and the equatorial plasma membrane directs furrow formation. Using chemical genetic and optogenetic tools, we demonstrate ...

Conservation tillage is an energy efficient and low cost tillage system to improve soil environment compared with conventional tillage systems. However, the rice residue management becomes an "impossible to achieve" task due to high soil moisture content at harvest time and the thickness of rice straw. Disc type furrow openers are used for both seed drilling as well as straw cutting during no t...

Animal cells initiate cytokinesis in parallel with anaphase onset, when an actomyosin ring assembles and constricts through localized activation of the small GTPase RhoA, giving rise to a cleavage furrow. Furrow formation relies on positional cues provided by anaphase spindle microtubules (MTs), but how such cues are generated remains unclear. Using chemical genetics to achieve both temporal an...

BACKGROUND During cell division, chromosomes must clear the path of the cleavage furrow before the onset of cytokinesis. The abscission checkpoint in mammalian cells stabilizes the cleavage furrow in the presence of a chromatin obstruction. This provides time to resolve the obstruction before the cleavage furrow regresses or breaks the chromosomes, preventing aneuploidy or DNA damage. Two unans...

The surface distribution of concanavalin A (Con A) bound to cell membrane receptors varies dramatically as a function of mitotic phase. The lectin is distributed diffusely on cells labeled and observed between mid-prophase and early anaphase, whereas cells observed in late anaphase or telophase demonstrate a marked accumulation of Con A-receptor complexes over the developing cleavage furrow (Be...