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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Aug 19.
Published in final edited form as: Cell. 2011 Aug 19;146(4):555–567. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.07.012

Figure 3. Architecture of the early-prometaphase spindle.

Figure 3

(A–A’) A single GFP-fluorescence focal plane (A) and the corresponding EM section (A’) selected from complete 3-D datasets. Chromosomes are excluded from the spindle and the centromeres reside on the spindle surface. Insets denote the areas presented at higher magnification in (B–D). (B) A view of the sharp demarcation between the spindle and the rest of the cytoplasm showing the high density of microtubules inside the spindle and their absence in the cytoplasm. (C) The centromeres reside on the surface of the spindle. Note that only few microtubules can be found outside the spindle between the chromosome arms. (D) Serial sections through a centromere on the surface of the spindle. Both sister kinetochores (arrows) lack end-on microtubule attachments but laterally interact with individual microtubules (arrowheads) that run parallel to the centromere. The distance between sister kinetochores is ~1 µm in spite the lack of end-on attachments. See Fig.S3 for 3-D data on the kinetochore distribution in this cell. Scale bars are 2.5 µm for (A–B) and 1 µm for (B–D).