Molecular ‘Muscles’ Help Cells Divide

U.S. scientists have used time-lapse videos and computer simulations to discover how molecular muscles help cells divide.

Yale University biologists and physicists said their findings represent the first molecular explanation of how a cell flexes tiny muscle-like structures to pinch itself into two daughter cells at the end of each cell division.

The researchers first modeled and then observed the way a cell assembles its contractile ring — the short-lived force-producing structure that physically divides cells and is always located precisely between the two daughter cell nuclei.

This contractile ring is thought to operate like an old-fashioned purse string, said Professor Thomas Pollard, the study’s senior author. It constricts the cell membrane into a cleavage furrow that eventually pinches the cell in two.

The research appears in the online journal Science Express.