Assembly and breakdown of microtubules within the midbody

In animal cells, cell division concludes with the separation of two daughter cells during a process called cytokinesis. Abscission, the termination of cytokinesis, is performed through formation of the midbody, a vis-á-vis microtubule (MT)-rich structure bridging the daughter cells. Disassembly of the midbody is the final stage of daughter cell separation and occurs in parallel to membrane fusion in this area. To shed light on this process and to better understand MT organization within the dense area of the midbody structure, an integrative fluorescence microscopy and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) approach was taken.1 These efforts led to a resolving of MT architecture at single-fiber resolution, resulting in a refined model of abscission.