title: 27 T ultra-high static magnetic field changes orientation and morphology of mitotic spindles in human cells.
abstract: Purified microtubules have been shown to align along the static magnetic field (SMF) in vitro because of their diamagnetic anisotropy. However, whether mitotic spindle in cells can be aligned by magnetic field has not been experimentally proved. In particular, the biological effects of SMF of above 20 T (Tesla) have never been reported. Here we found that in both CNE-2Z and RPE1 human cells spindle orients in 27 T SMF. The direction of spindle alignment depended on the extent to which chromosomes were aligned to form a planar metaphase plate. Our results show that the magnetic torque acts on both microtubules and chromosomes, and the preferred direction of spindle alignment relative to the field depends more on chromosome alignment than microtubules. In addition, spindle morphology was also perturbed by 27 T SMF. This is the first reported study that investigated the cellular responses to ultra-high magnetic field of above 20 T. Our study not only found that ultra-high magnetic field can change the orientation and morphology of mitotic spindles, but also provided a tool to probe the role of spindle orientation and perturbation in developmental and cancer biology.
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.|University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Yubin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Zhiyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xinmiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.|University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Ze
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.|University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Huizhen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.|University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xiaofei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Fazhi
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Zhenye
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.|University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pi
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States.
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Mitchison
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.|University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructure, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Qingyou
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3499-2189
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D002877:Chromosomes, Human / Q000528:radiation effects; D006801:Humans; D060526:Magnetic Fields; D008938:Mitosis / Q000528:radiation effects*; D008941:Spindle Apparatus / Q000528:radiation effects*
keywords: biophysics; cell biology; human; magnetic field; microtubule; spindle orientation; structural biology