Fyn Accelerates M Phase Progression by Promoting the Assembly of Mitotic Spindle Microtubules

The mitotic spindle is the major piece of cellular machinery essential for faithful chromosome segregation. Whereas Fyn, a member of Src-family kinases, is known to be localized to the meiotic and mitotic spindle microtubules, the role of Fyn in mitotic spindle formation has not yet been completely elucidated. In this study, we studied the role of Fyn in spindle formation and effects on M-phase progression. Re-expression of Fyn induced increases in the fluorescence intensity of mitotic spindle microtubules in SYF cells having triple knock-out mutations of c-Src, c-Yes, and Fyn. Cold treatment results showed that Fyn increases the maximum length of microtubules in HeLa S3 cells in a manner dependent on Fyn kinase activity. Complete depolymerization of microtubules under cold treatment and the following release into 37 °C revealed that the increase in the microtubule length in Fyn-expressing cells may be attributed to the promotion of microtubule polymerization. After cold treatment, Fyn promotes the accumulation of EB1, which is a plus-end tracking protein and facilitates microtubule growth, in a manner dependent on the kinase activity. Furthermore, Fyn accelerates the M phase progression of cells from nocodazole arrest. These results suggest that Fyn facilitates mitotic spindle formation through the increase in microtubule polymerization, resulting in the acceleration of M-phase progression.