New insight into cell division
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Abnormal mitotic spindle, whose deformation is caused by defective cell division control. The chromosomes are dyed red, the microtubules green. Image: Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics
When cells divide, control mechanisms ensure that the genetic material, in other words the chromosomes, is correctly distributed to the daughter cells. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin have now explained the molecular principles of these control processes. The so-called checkpoint kinases, i.e. the enzymes which perform this controlling, are not directly associated only with the chromosomes, as was previously assumed to be the case. On the contrary, they interact with a different category of proteins which are involved in the development of the cell division spindle.
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