Erythroid differentiation is a multistage process that begins with hematopoietic stem cells and ends, during the late stage of terminal erythroid differentiation, with orthochromatic erythroblasts expelling their nuclei to give rise to enucleated reticulocytes. The mechanisms by which spherical erythroblasts determine the direction of nuclear polarization and maintain asymmetry during nuclear expulsion are poorly understood. Xu and colleagues hypothesized a role of the Aurora kinases in this process. Using pharmacological and genetic approaches in conjunction with high-resolution confocal microscopy, they documented that Aurora kinase A (AURKA) plays a critical role in nuclear polarization and enucleation via regulation of centrosome localization and the degradation of ECT2, a guanine nucleotide exchange protein.

Belantamab mafodotin, a first-in-class anti-B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) antibody-drug conjugate approved for the treatment of triple-class refractory multiple myeloma, has a distinct and peculiar ocular side effect profile, including corneal microcysts and keratopathy. Munawar and colleagues provide an explanation of the mechanism of keratopathy induction. They describe the first evidence of soluble BCMA (sBCMA) in lacrimal fluid, report on its correlation with tumor burden in myeloma patients and present pinocytosis as the underlying mechanism of keratopathy induction.