Linked for life: temporal and spatial coordination of late mitotic events

Establishing the temporal order of mitotic events is critical to ensure that each daughter cell receives a complete DNA complement. The spatial co-ordination of the cytokinetic ring site with the axis of chromosome segregation is likewise crucial. Recent studies in fungi indicate that regulators of chromosome segregation also participate in promoting mitotic exit and that the proteins that initiate mitotic exit, in turn, additionally regulate cytokinesis. These findings suggest that late mitotic events are coupled by employing one pathway to control multiple events. The regulatory mechanisms that ensure the spatial co-ordination of the mitotic spindle apparatus with the division site have also been elucidated recently in the asymmetrically dividing budding yeast. Interestingly, the spatial co-ordination of late mitotic events seems also to be important in higher eukaryotes.