"A new hypothesis for the anaphase movement" by Miguel Mota conceptualized that chromosome movement during anaphase is due to an active role played by kinetochores, minute protein bodies located at the centromeric region where spindle microtubules attach, which he envisioned to act also as “engines” that move chromosomes to the poles.

This visionary model was experimentally confirmed by Gorbsky and colleagues, in 1987, who showed that spindle microtubules shorten from kinetochores during anaphase in vertebrate cells. The existence of motors at kinetochores, namely cytoplasmic Dynein, a microtubule minus-end motor, was independently confirmed by the laboratories of Richard McIntosh and Michael Sheetz, and subsequently shown to be required for chromosome poleward motion by Conly Rieder and colleagues, David Sharp and Jonathan Scholey, thereby providing experimental confirmation of Miguel Mota’s original hypothesis.