Divide and Enlarge - A new mechanism by which cell nuclei grow

One of the most important processes in cell development is cell division. In a joint project led by Prof. Dr. Robert Grosse in Freiburg, Germany, we were part of the research team that now discovered that bundled fibers of actin within a cell nucleus play an important role in how cells enlarge after division: After division, cell nuclei must grow in order to reorganize and unpack the genetic information to process and read it. With this work, we show that bundled fibers of actin – which are normally responsible for exerting force – work within the cell to expand the cell nucleus. The results are now published in EMBO reports.