The Respective Contributions of the Mother and Daughter Centrioles to Centrosome Activity and Behavior in Vertebrate Cells

Abstract

During mitosis, animal cells inherit a single centrosome that contains a pair of centrioles, each of which is associated with a cloud of pericentriolar material (reviewed in Andersen 1999; Mogensen 1999; Schnackenberg and Palazzo 1999; Tassin and Bornens 1999). These two centrioles differ both structurally (Paintrand et al. 1992) and biochemically (Lange and Gull 1995): the older “mother” centriole, which was formed at least 1.5 generations earlier, carries two sets of appendages (distal and sub-distal). In contrast, the younger “daughter” centriole, which was formed during the previous S phase, lacks these structures. This structural asymmetry appears to be due partly to the semiconservative nature of centrosome replication (Kochanski and Borisy 1990).