Studying cell division orientation in complex mammalian tissues and organs, relevant to human physiology and diseases, has been in general hampered by the difficulty of performing advanced imaging in live animal models, and by plausible pleiotropic effects of loss of function assays. Therefore, addressing detailed mechanisms regulating spindle orientation in proliferating mammalian epithelial tissues remains an outstanding open endeavor. 

In a recently published study in Developmental Cell, Amlan Barai and Delphine Delacour from the IBDM, have shown that microtubule length regulation may serve as a key mechanism for mitotic spindles to sense local cell shapes and tissue forces to preserve mammalian epithelial architecture, by documenting with high temporal and spatial resolution spindle orientation together with MT dynamics, cell shape and polarity in 3D mammalian intestinal organoids.