We have gone on to study the effects of depleting Nup153 in somatic cells (HeLa in this case). This led to several interesting observations and is described in Mackay et al., 2009. In addition to defects early in mitosis, one striking phenotype was a delay in the final stages of cell division. We tracked this phenotype both with live cell imaging and by monitoring midbodies, which are structures formed between the two daughter cells that organize the final separation of the cells, or abscission. This unexpected finding has led us to a new interest in how the role of Nup153 is tied into midbodies -whether directly or via a signaling pathway delays completion of division when Nup153 function is defective.
