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Local body weight measurement of the spindle
Masahito Tanaka1, Yuta Shimamoto2
1Physics and Cell Biology Laboratory, Department of Chromosome Science, National Institute of Genetics, Yata 1111, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan.
Abstract:
The spindle is a micron-sized chromosome segregation machine built from microtubules and many other proteins. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Biswas et al. (2021) use sophisticated imaging and Xenopus egg extracts to show that the spindle's mass density is only as much as the surrounding cytoplasm, contrary to popular belief.
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