Drosophila female germline stem cells (GSCs) are found inside the cellular niche at the tip of the ovary. They undergo asymmetric divisions to renew the stem cell lineage and to produce sibling cystoblasts that will in turn enter differentiation. GSCs and cystoblasts contain spectrosomes, membranous structures essential to orientate the mitotic spindle and that, particularly in GSCs, change shape depending on the cell cycle phase. Using live imaging and a GFP fusion of the spectrosome component Par-1, we follow the complete spectrosome cycle throughout GSC division and quantify the relative duration of the different spectrosome shapes. We also determine that the Par-1 kinase shuttles between the spectrosome and the cytoplasm during mitosis and observe the continuous addition of new material to the GSC and cystoblast spectrosomes. Next, we utilise the Fly-FUCCI tool to define in live and fixed tissues that GSCs have a shorter G1 compared to the G2 phase. The observation of centrosomes in dividing GSCs allowed us to determine that centrosomes separate very early in G1, prior to centriole duplication. Furthermore, we show that the anterior centrosome associates with the spectrosome only during mitosis and that, upon mitotic spindle assembly, it translocates to the cell cortex, where it remains anchored until centrosome separation. Finally, we demonstrate that the asymmetric division of GSCs is not an intrinsic property of these cells, since the spectrosome of GSC-like cells located outside of the niche can divide symmetrically. Thus, GSCs display unique properties during division, a behaviour influenced by the surrounding niche.
Live imaging of the Drosophila ovarian niche shows spectrosome and centrosome dynamics during asymmetric germline stem cell division