Yeltokov, A. orcid.org/0009-0008-6086-4595, Finegan, T.M. orcid.org/0000-0003-0801-9577, Fletcher, A.G. orcid.org/0000-0003-0525-4336 et al. (3 more authors) (2026) Microtubule pushing and cortical pulling cooperate to orient and position the mitotic spindle. The EMBO Journal. ISSN: 0261-4189
Abstract
While regulation of spindle positioning and orientation is known to be mediated by cortical pulling forces generated by dynein on astral microtubules, the contribution of microtubule-based pushing forces remains less clear. We developed a two-dimensional computational model that incorporates both cortical pulling and microtubule pushing to examine spindle behavior across diverse cell types and geometries. The model successfully recapitulates experimental observations in cells that round during mitosis, including Drosophila follicular epithelial cells, Drosophila neuroblasts, and the early C. elegans embryo. Our analysis shows that pulling forces are the dominant determinants of directional spindle orientation. However, pushing forces play essential supporting roles by preventing spindle stalling, enhancing robustness, and facilitating efficient alignment. We further applied our model to irregularly shaped zebrafish endothelial cells, which exhibit complex, non-spherical geometries and dynamic morphology. In this context, our model demonstrates that asymmetric distributions of cortical force generators, potentially enriched at cell–cell junctions, are sufficient to explain off-center spindle positioning. Together, this work establishes a unified framework linking cell geometry, molecular polarity cues, and force balance to spindle dynamics.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Authors/Creators: |
|
| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2026 The Author(s). Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ applies to the data associated with this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data, but does not extend to the graphical or creative elements of illustrations, charts, or figures. This waiver removes legal barriers to the re-use and mining of research data. According to standard scholarly practice, it is recommended to provide appropriate citation and attribution whenever technically possible. |
| Keywords: | Biochemistry and Cell Biology; Biological Sciences; Bioengineering; Normal biological development and functioning; Generic health relevance |
| Dates: |
|
| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
| Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/W024144/1 BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL / BBSRC BB/Y514020/1 |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Oct 2026 09:25 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Oct 2026 09:25 |
| Status: | Published online |
| Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Identification Number: | 10.1038/s44318-026-00937-3 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:247019 |
Download
Filename: s44318-026-00937-3.pdf
Licence: CC-BY 4.0

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)