Acentrosomal spindle organization in C. elegans meiosis

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Female meiosis involves bipolar spindle formation and chromosome orientation, as well as a charac-teristic reorganization of the microtubule cytoskeleton at the metaphase-toanaphase transition in preparation for chromosome/chromatid segregation. We are using the early embryo of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system to answer the question, how genome haploidization in the female germ line can be achieved in an environment lacking a ‘classic’ microtubule-organizing center (MTOC). For the second period of funding of the SPP we propose to develop 3-D models of whole meiotic spindles. In addition, we propose to further characterize the effect of depletion of kinesinlike protein family members on spindle organization. Applying such a systematic light microscopy and electron tomography approach, we plan to develop a mechanistic model of acentrosomal spindle assembly in C. elegans.