TY - JOUR TI - Use of Xenopus cell-free extracts to study size regulation of subcellular structures AU - Jevtić, Predrag AU - Milunović-Jevtić, Ana AU - Dilsaver, MatthewR. AU - Gatlin, JesseC. AU - Levy, DanielL. T2 - The International Journal of Developmental Biology AB - Striking size variations are prominent throughout biology, at the organismal, cellular, and subcellular levels. Important fundamental questions concern organelle size regulation and how organelle size is regulated relative to cell size, also known as scaling. Uncovering mechanisms of organelle size regulation will inform the functional significance of size as well as the implications of misregulated size, for instance in the case of nuclear enlargement in cancer. Xenopus egg and embryo extracts are powerful cell-free systems that have been utilized extensively for mechanistic and functional studies of various organelles and subcellular structures. The open biochemical nature of the extract permits facile manipulation of its composition, and in recent years extract approaches have illuminated mechanisms of organelle size regulation. This review largely focuses on in vitro Xenopus studies that have identified regulators of nuclear and spindle size. We also discuss potential relationships between size scaling of the nucleus and spindle, size regulation of other subcellular structures, and extract experiments that have clarified developmental timing mechanisms. We conclude by offering some future prospects, notably the integration of Xenopus extract with microfluidic technology. PY - 2016 DO - 10.1387/ijdb.160158dl VL - 60 IS - 7-8-9 SP - 277 EP - 288 J2 - Int. J. Dev. Biol. LA - en SN - 0214-6282 SN - 1696-3547 UR - https://ijdb.ehu.eus/article/160158dl Y2 - 2024/05/01/20:16:10 ER -