Theory Influence of Cell Geometry on Division-Plane Positioning Nicolas Minc,1,3,4,* David Burgess,2,3 and Fred Chang1,3 1Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, 701 W168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA 2Department of Biology, Boston College, 528 Higgins Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167-3811, USA 3Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA 4Present address: Institut Curie, UMR 144 CNRS/IC, 26 rue d’Ulm, 75248 Paris Cedex 05, France *Correspondence:
[email protected] DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2011.01.016 SUMMARY from the microtubule (MT) and/or actin cytoskeletons (Grill and Hyman, 2005; Kunda and Baum, 2009; Reinsch and Gonczy, The spatial organization of cells depends on their 1998; Wuhr et al., 2009). Depending on cell type, the division ability to sense their own shape and size. Here, we plane can be set by the orientation of the nucleus during investigate how cell shape affects the positioning of interphase or early prophase or may be modified by rotation or the nucleus, spindle and subsequent cell division movement of the spindle during anaphase. How these force- plane. To manipulate geometrical parameters in generating systems globally sense the shape and dimensions a systematic manner, we place individual sea urchin of the cell remains an outstanding question. The single-cell sea urchin zygote is an attractive cell type for eggs into microfabricated chambers of defined studying the effects of cell geometry. To date, many well-charac- geometry (e.g., triangles, rectangles, and ellipses).