Nuclear Migration: From Fungi to the Mammalian Brain

Textbooks represent the animal cell nucleus as a sort of cellular Jabba the Hutt, torpidly enthroned in the center of the cell. In fact nothing could be farther from the truth. The nucleus more closely resembles Luke Skywalker, the hero of Star Wars, in its ability to move about in its cellular universe. Instances of nuclear motility are found throughout biology. Indeed, nuclear migration appears to be required for the proper growth and development of essentially all eukaryotes. Some well known examples, i.e., those in textbooks, are the congression of male and female pronuclei during fertilization, the movement of nuclei to the egg cortex during embryogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster, and during karyogamy and the migration of the daughter nucleus into the bud in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Innumerable other nuclear motility events have been described in animals, plants, insects,...