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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Aug 26.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Biol. 2008 Aug 26;18(16):1256–1261. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.092

Figure 1. Spindle size is uncoupled from cell size during first mitoses.

Figure 1

X. laevis embryos at various stages of development were fixed and stained for tubulin (yellow) and DNA (red). A) Embryo at stage 8: animal pole with smaller cells and smaller spindles on top, vegetal pole with larger cells and larger spindles on bottom. B) Embryo at mitosis 7 animal part. C) Second mitotic spindle. White lines define spindle and cell size used throughout this paper. D) Egg arrested at metaphase of meiosis II with arrow pointing at spindle. Bar for upper row = 500 µm. Bar for lower row = 20 µm. E) Plot of cell size versus spindle size at different stages of development. Spindle size increases with cell size but asymptotically reaches an upper limit ~60 µm. Plot on the right is a zoom-in of smaller cells and spindles.