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The spindle apparatus is vaguely ellipsoid in cross section and tapers at the ends. In the wide middle portion, known as the spindle midzone, antiparallel microtubules are bundled by kinesins. At the pointed ends, known as spindle poles, microtubules are nucleated by the centrosomes in most animal cells.
These microtubules form direct connections with the kinetochores in the mitotic spindle. Each K fiber is composed of 20–40 parallel microtubules, forming a strong tube which is attached at one end to the centrosome and on the other to the kinetochore, located in the center of each chromosome.
In this way, the spindle in a mitotic cell has two poles emanating microtubules. Microtubules are long proteic filaments with asymmetric extremes, a "minus"(-) end relatively stable next to the centrosome, and a "plus"(+) end enduring alternate phases of growing-shrinking, exploring the center of the cell.
In the absence of the centrioles, the microtubules of the spindle are focused by motors, allowing the formation of a bipolar spindle. Many cells can completely undergo interphase without centrioles. [10] Unlike centrioles, centrosomes are required for survival of the organism. Cells without centrosomes lack radial arrays of astral microtubules ...
After the chromosomes line up in the middle of the cell, the spindle fibers will pull them apart. The chromosomes are split apart while the sister chromatids move to opposite sides of the cell. [29] As the sister chromatids are being pulled apart, the cell and plasma are elongated by non-kinetochore microtubules. [30]
Astral microtubules anchor the spindle poles to the cell membrane. Microtubule polymerization is nucleated at the microtubule organizing center . An aster is a cellular structure shaped like a star , consisting of a centrosome and its associated microtubules during the early stages of mitosis in an animal cell.
An array of microtubules can arrange themselves in a pinwheel structure to form the basal bodies, which can lead to the formation of microtubule arrays in the cytoplasm or the 9+2 axoneme. Other arrangements range from fungi spindle pole bodies to the eukaryotic chromosomal kinetochores (flat, laminated plaques). MTOCs can be freely dispersed ...
In prophase of mitosis, specialized regions on centromeres called kinetochores attach chromosomes to spindle fibers. The centromere links a pair of sister chromatids together during cell division. This constricted region of chromosome connects the sister chromatids, creating a short arm (p) and a long arm (q) on the chromatids.