Multiscale visualization of cytoskeletal rearrangements in cytokinesis with expansion and lattice light-sheet microscopy

Datum

24.11.2025

Zeit

11:00 - 12:00

Sprecher

Nadja Hümpfer

Zugehörigkeit

FU Berlin, Germany

Sprache

en

Hauptthema

Biologie

Host

Sandra Scharaw

Beschreibung

Cell division is a process fundamental to life. After the genetic material is duplicated, mitosis is concluded by cytokinesis. This highly conserved process starts with the ingression of a cleavage furrow between the two daughter cells. The central spindle transforms into the intercellular bridge, an extremely dense microtubule bundle connecting the dividing cells, which later is cut when the cells abscise by an ESCRT-dependent process. While the main players that execute the ingression of the cleavage furrow, the formation of the midbody in the intercellular bridge and finally the abscission of the dividing cells have long been identified, the temporal progression and nanoscale organization of molecules acting during cytokinesis remain only rudimentarily understood. This is due to the relatively fast process of furrow ingression and its three-dimensional nature, which is difficult to study at high spatiotemporal resolution, especially below the diffraction limit of light. In this seminar, I will present a spatiotemporal atlas of cytokinesis, based on the combination of fast volumetric imaging using lattice light-sheet microscopy and super-resolution expansion microscopy (ExM). Computational modelling of cytokinesis based on the septin and microtubule cytoskeleton as markers allows the correlation and registration of multiple cytokinetic factors along a pseudotime axis. Our ExM-based workflow unlocks the midbody dark zone for visualization and provides three-dimensional and contextual information with high resolution, thus offering unprecedented insights into mammalian cytokinesis and an assay to further explore its perturbation.

Letztmalig verändert: 13.11.2025, 07:35:29