Seminars

Meiosis is characterized by the first, or reductional, division. We use Drosophila melanogaster females as a model to understand the mechanisms that promote accurate chromosome segregation on the acentrosomal spindle of oocytes. Furthermore, we are interested in understanding the features of the oocyte spindle that make it susceptible to chromosome segregation errors. An important part of this process is how the kinetochores on the chromosomes interact with the microtubules of the spindle. The kinetochore interacts with the microtubules in two ways. First, lateral attachments, where the kinetochores move along the sides of microtubules. Second, end-on attachments, where the kinetochores make a stable attachment to the ends of microtubules, maintain connections to a pole and segregate the homologs. The lateral interactions occur between the kinetochores and central spindle, which is composed of overlapping antiparallel microtubules and may be particularly important for acentrosomal oocytes. We hypothesize that the transition between lateral and end-on attachments is regulated to avoid errors in chromosome segregation.