Choice between 1- and 2-furrow cytokinesis in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos with tripolar spindles

Abstract

Excess numbers of centrosomes often lead to multipolar spindles, and thus probably to multipolar mitosis and aneuploidy. In Caenorhabditis elegans, approximately 70% of the paternal emb-27APC6 mutant embryonic cells contained more than 2 centrosomes and formed multipolar spindles. However, only 30% of the cells with tripolar spindles formed 2 cytokinetic furrows. The rest formed 1 furrow, like normal cells. To investigate the mechanism how the cells avoided to form 2 cytokinetic furrows even with a tripolar spindle, we conducted live-cell imaging in emb-27APC6 mutant cells. We found that the chromatids were aligned only on 2 of the 3 sides of the tripolar spindle, and the angle of the tripolar spindle relative to the long axis of the cell correlated with the number of cytokinetic furrow. Our numerical modeling showed that the combination of cell shape, cortical pulling forces, and heterogeneity of centrosome size determines whether cells with tripolar spindle form 1 or 2 cytokinetic furrows.