Orchestrating nuclear envelope disassembly and reassembly during mitosis

Cell division in eukaryotes requires extensive architectural changes of the nuclear envelope (NE) to ensure that segregated DNA is finally enclosed in a single cell nucleus in each daughter cell. Higher eukaryotic cells have evolved 'open' mitosis, the most extreme mechanism to solve the problem of nuclear division, in which the NE is initially completely disassembled and then reassembled in coordination with DNA segregation. Recent progress in the field has now started to uncover mechanistic and molecular details that underlie the changes in NE reorganization during open mitosis. These studies reveal a tight interplay between NE components and the mitotic machinery.