Mammalian cytokinesis proceeds by constriction of an actomyosin ring and furrow 
ingression, resulting in the formation of the midbody bridge connecting two 
daughter cells. At the centre of the midbody resides the Flemming body, a dense 
proteinaceous ring surrounding the interlocking ends of anti-parallel 
microtubule arrays. Abscission, the terminal step of cytokinesis, occurs near 
the Flemming body. A series of broad processes govern abscission: the initiation 
and stabilisation of the abscission zone, followed by microtubule severing and 
membrane scission-The latter mediated by the endosomal sorting complex required 
for transport (ESCRT) proteins. A key goal of cell and developmental biologists 
is to develop a clear understanding of the mechanisms that underpin abscission, 
and how the spatiotemporal coordination of these events with previous stages in 
cell division is accomplished. This article will focus on the function and 
dynamics of the ESCRT proteins in abscission and will review recent work, which 
has begun to explore how these complex protein assemblies are regulated by the 
cell cycle machinery.