FOCAL POINT Karen Gascoigne (left) and Iain Cheeseman investigated four hypotheses to explain the regulation of kinetochore assembly and disassembly. They tracked kinetochore proteins such as CENP-C and Ndc80 before, during, and after mitosis. As these nuclear shapshots suggest, CENP-C (top row) remains in the nucleus and associates with kinetochores throughout the cell cycle. In contrast, Ndc80 (bottom row) cozies up to the kinetochores only during mitosis.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID KERN