Aurora A regulates the material property of spindle poles to orchestrate nuclear organization at mitotic exit

Animal cells dismantle their nuclear envelope (NE) at the beginning and reconstruct it at the end of Mitosis. This process is closely coordinated with spindle pole organization: poles enlarge at mitotic onset and reduce in size as Mitosis concludes. The significance of this coordination remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that Aurora A maintains a pole-localized protein NuMA in a dynamic state during anaphase. Without Aurora A activity, NuMA shifts from a dynamic to a solid state and abnormally accumulates at the poles, causing the segregated chromosome sets to bend around the NuMA-enriched poles. NuMA localization at the poles relies on interactions with dynein/dynactin, its coiled-coil domain, and an intrinsically disordered region (IDR). Mutagenesis experiments revealed that cation-π interactions within IDR are key for NuMA pole localization, while glutamine residues trigger the solid-state transition of NuMA upon Aurora A inhibition. We propose that maintaining the proper material properties of the spindle poles is a key step in choreographing the accurate organization of the nucleus and genome post-mitosis.

Aurora A; Material Property; NuMA; Nuclear Shape; Spindle Poles.