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Cover image is a light micrograph of a retina of a mutant Drosophila compound eye (Mol. Biol. Cell [2004] 15, 600-610). The fly is heterozygous for a hypomorphic mutation in Lamin Dm0, which encodes nuclear lamin, and a deletion of the gene (Lam^A25/Df(2L)cl-h4). Wild-type compound eyes have a crystalline array of ~800 identical facets, or ommatidia, each with 8 photoreceptors arranged in a trapezoid. In Lam mutant eyes, the photoreceptor cells are malformed because the cell nuclei, which are surrounded by the majority of the cell cytoplasm, are mispositioned. Nuclei are mispositioned in Lam mutants because the nuclei disconnect from the microtubule organizing center (MTOC). Why? It turns out that nuclear lamin is required to hold a protein called Klarsicht in the nuclear envelope. By interacting with microtubules located between the nucleus and the MTOC, Klarsicht links the nucleus and the MTOC.

-Janice Fischer