{"doi":"10.1101/2021.06.17.448874","title":"Acentrosomal spindle assembly and stability in <i>C. elegans</i> oocytes requires a kinesin-12 non-motor microtubule interaction domain","abstract":"SUMMARY During the meiotic divisions in oocytes, microtubules are sorted and organized by motor proteins to generate a bipolar spindle in the absence of centrosomes [1]. In most organisms, kinesin-5 family members crosslink and slide microtubules to generate outward force that promotes acentrosomal spindle bipolarity [2–7]. However, the mechanistic basis for how other kinesin families act on acentrosomal spindles has not been explored. We investigated this question in C. elegans oocytes, where kinesin-5 is not required to generate outward force [8]. Instead, the kinesin-12 family motor KLP-18 performs this function [9–12]. KLP-18 acts with adaptor protein MESP-1 ( me iotic sp indle 1 ) to sort microtubule minus ends to the periphery of a microtubule array, where they coalesce into spindle poles [12]. If either of these proteins is depleted, outward sorting of microtubules is lost and minus ends converge to form a monoaster. Here we use a combination of in vitro biochemical assays and in vivo mutant analysis to provide insight into the mechanism by which these proteins collaborate to promote acentrosomal spindle assembly. We identify a microtubule binding site on the C-terminal stalk of KLP-18 and demonstrate that a direct interaction between the KLP-18 stalk and MESP-1 activates non-motor microtubule binding. We also provide evidence that this C-terminal domain is required for KLP-18 activity during spindle assembly and show that KLP-18 is continuously required to maintain spindle bipolarity. This study thus provides new insight into the construction and maintenance of the oocyte acentrosomal spindle as well as into kinesin-12 mechanism and regulation.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":216614,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9585,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":458498,"name":"Jeremy A. Hollis","orcid":"0000-0003-3375-8937","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":458500,"name":"Sarah M. Wignall","orcid":"0000-0001-9828-9356","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":812516,"name":"Ian D. Wolff","orcid":"0000-0002-7734-558X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":71,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:11.245932Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}