Rashomon at the kinetochore: Function(s) of the Mad1–cyclin B1 complex

Houston et al. synthesize recent work analyzing Mad1–cyclin B1 complex function in mitosis.
In the film Rashomon, four witnesses describe seemingly contradictory views of one event. In a recent analogy, an interaction between the master mitotic regulator cyclin B1 and the spindle checkpoint component Mad1 was independently described by three groups who propose strikingly different functions for this interaction. Here, we summarize their findings and present a perspective on reconciling the different views.