WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Using two specialized microscopes invented at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), a team of researchers from Japan and the MBL have developed a new method to measure the forces that keep the nucleus centered within a living cell. The experiments also provided important new clues about the properties of cellular cytoplasm and the mechanisms of organelle motion within cells. The work was published Oct. 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Understanding the mechanism of nuclear positioning is important in understanding cell division,” a central process in the early development, growth, and health of all living organisms, says study lead author Akatsuki Kimura, professor at the Cell Architecture Laboratory at the National Institute of Genetics in Japan. “Cells must divide evenly to produce cells with the same size. For the cell to divide at the center, positioning of the nucleus at the cell center is critical.” Kimura adds that “it has been a mystery how a large structure, such as the cell nucleus, can move inside the crowded cell interior.”
While it’s long been known that appropriate positioning and movement of the nucleus and other organelles are crucial for cell functioning, the ability to accurately measure such intracellular forces has been limited.