NuMA after 30 years: the matrix revisited.

Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-6070, USA.

Trends in cell biology 2010 Apr

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The large nuclear mitotic apparatus (NuMA) protein is an abundant component of interphase nuclei and an essential player in mitotic spindle assembly and maintenance. With its partner, cytoplasmic dynein, NuMA uses its cross-linking properties to tether microtubules to spindle poles. NuMA and its invertebrate homologs play a similar tethering role at the cell cortex, thereby mediating essential asymmetric divisions during development. Despite its maintenance as a nuclear component for decades after the final mitosis of many cell types (including neurons), an interphase role for NuMA remains to be established, although its structural properties implicate it as a component of a nuclear scaffold, perhaps as a central constituent of the proposed nuclear matrix. Copyright 2010. Published by Elsevier Ltd.