Cell News 2/2014
22
As the nuclear envelope is connected to all cytoskeletal fila-
ment systems, which in are turn linked to the plasma mem-
brane, Cavalier-Smith has suggested that "lamins and the in-
termediate filament protein family as a whole have evolved
in the ancestral animal (sponge) to increase the mechanical
strength of the giant oocyte nucleus when the ancestor of ani-
mals evolved oogamy" and that "the mechanical robustness of
the lamina may have made it essential for it to be reversibly
disassembled at mitosis" (Cavalier-Smith, 2010). Thus he pro-
posed that open mitosis has coevolved with the lamina in the
ancestral animal. However, we now know that lamins (NE81)
are already present in Dictyostelidae, i.e. amoebozoans. Since,
Dictyostelium has a more closed type of mitosis, comparable to
fungi such as Aspergillus (De Souza and Osmani, 2007), which
clearly possess no lamins, these two issues are not likely to be
interlinked. Dictyostelium most likely has solved the problem
to soften the nuclear envelope in order to allow karyokinesis
by disassembly of NE81 networks while disassembled NE81 still
stays associated with the nuclear envelope through its prenyl
anchor (Krüger et al., 2012).
Outlook
Further clarification of the evolution of the nuclear envelope
and centrosomes will arise from further analyses of nuclear
envelope proteins interacting with the nuclear lamina in vari-
ous organisms and functional characterization of further cen-
trosomal proteins in organisms with acentriolar centrosomes.
Of special interest in this respect is the acellular slime mold
Physarum polycephalum. It exists in different life forms, inclu-
ding an amoeboid form with centriole-containing centrosomes
and an open mitosis and syncycial plasmodia with acentriolar
MTOCs and a closed mitosis (Tanaka, 1973; Wright et al., 1988;
Solnica Krezel et al., 1991). Theoretically this allows compara-
tive cell biology within one organism especially if the ongoing,
difficult Physarum genome project will be finished (Glöckner
et al., 2008).
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