Remodelling the walls of the nucleus

The nuclear envelope (NE) acts as a selective barrier around the genome and as a scaffold to organize DNA in the nucleus. During cell division, the NE is broken down and chromosome confinement is taken over by microtubules. After chromosome segregation, a new NE is reassembled in each daughter cell. In this complex cycle of disassembly and reassembly, the fate of the NE is intimately linked to the activity of the mitotic spindle. The finding that components of the nuclear membrane become distributed throughout a continuous endoplasmic reticulum during mitosis indicates new mechanisms by which nuclear membrane domains are established, and highlights unique problems in the establishment of NE topology.