A.
The first visible sign of cytokinesis in animal cells is a puckering and furrowing of the plasma membrane that occurs during anaphase. The furrowing invariably occurs along a plane that runs perpendicular to the long axis of the mitotic spindle. This positioning ensures that the cleavage furrow cuts between the two groups of segregated chromosomes, so that each daughter cell receives an identical and complete set of chromosomes.
B.
If the mitotic spindle is deliberately displaced (using a fine glass needle) as soon as the furrow appears, the furrow will disappear and a new one will develop at a site corresponding to the new spindle location and orientation. Once the furrowing process is well under way, however, cleavage proceeds even if the mitotic spindle is artificially sucked out of the cell or depolymerized using the drug colchicine.
C.
How does the mitotic spindle dictate the position of the cleavage furrow? The mechanism is still uncertain, but it appears that, during anaphase, the overlapping interpolar microtubules that form the central spindle recruit and activate proteins that signal to the cell cortex to initiate the assembly of the contractile ring at a position midway between the spindle poles. Because these signals originate during anaphase, this mechanism also contributes to the timing of cytokinesis in late mitosis.
D.
When the mitotic spindle is located centrally in the cell—the usual situation in most dividing cells—the two daughter cells will be of equal size. During embryonic development, however, there are some instances in which the dividing cell moves its mitotic spindle to an asymmetrical position, and, consequently, the furrow creates two daughter cells that differ in size. In most of these asymmetric divisions, the daughters also differ in the molecules they inherit, and they usually develop into different cell types.