Science Daily posted an article about new research that has recently been done by Warwick Medical School, on daughter cells with equal or unequal chromosome counts. By studying the mechanism of chromosomes being divided and passed on to daughter cells within yeast cells, Warwick scientists have been able to construct a better idea of how cancer cells my come to be. Yeast cells have a very similar cell division to human cells. Cancerous cells are mainly formed from daughter cells that have an unequal about of chromosomes. This means that each daughter cell do not have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. This error within the cells happens at what is called the “spindle checkpoint".
At this point in time the most commonly used cancer treatment is known as taxanes. Taxanes targets “the mitotic apparatus in part by preventing proper silencing of the spindle checkpoint”. With this new information of cell division of chromosomes, cancer drug researchers have a better idea of where to study the development of cancer within the body and what areas to target. I found this article very interesting because it is amazing how the smallest thing, such as an unequal number of pairs of chromosomes, could result in deathly cancer. Hopefully this research and others like it can help development more cancer treatments.
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