Nanoscale architecture of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe contractile ring
- Vanderbilt University, United States
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center, United States
- Stowers Institute for Medical Research, United States
- Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States
Abstract
The contractile ring is a complex molecular apparatus important for dividing many eukaryotic cells. Despite knowledge of its composition, the molecular architecture of the ring is not known. Here we applied super-resolution microscopy and FRET to determine the nanoscale spatial organization of Schizosaccharomyces pombe contractile ring components relative to the plasma membrane. As in other membrane-tethered actin structures, contractile ring proteins are stratified relative to the membrane. The lowest layer (0-80 nm) contains membrane-binding scaffolds, formin, and the myosin-II tail. An intermediate zone (80-160 nm) consists of a network of cytokinesis accessory proteins and signaling components that influence cell division. Most interior from the membrane (160-400 nm) is F-actin, myosin motor domains, and an F-actin crosslinker. Circumferentially within the ring, multiple proximal membrane proteins form different sized clusters, while components farther from the membrane are uniformly distributed. This comprehensive organizational map provides a framework for understanding contractile ring function.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (Research grant)
- Kathleen Gould
American Heart Association (Graduate Student Fellowship)
- Nathan A McDonald
National Institutes of Health (Research grant)
- Rong Li
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, McDonald et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 3,388
- views
-
- 557
- downloads
-
- 83
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Citations by DOI
-
- 83
- citations for umbrella DOI https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.28865
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Nanoscale architecture of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe contractile ring
eLife 6:e28865.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.28865
