How Cancer Cells Divide

A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, along with peers at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and at the Leibniz Institute for Age Research – Fritz Lipmann Institute in Jena have carried out a research on the division of cancer cells through the complex protein called the centrosome.

For multicellular organisms to grow and live is their cells' ability to divide, through a basic process that implies the duplication of the chromosomes in the cells, that are then distributed among the daughter cells.

This distribution is carried out by several hundreds different proteins that form the centrosome, and in cancer cells it is very different in shape and in numbers, without scientists knowing why, until now.

For the purpose of research, scientists looked at the centrosomes of the fruit fly Drosophila and also at those coming from human cells.

Using mass spectrometry methods, centrosomes from the eggs of the fruit fly were isolated, and researchers identified over 250 different proteins that are part of this complex.

The proteins were then inactivated through RNA interference – RNAi, to find out their role in the ditribution of the chromosomes and in the structure of the centrosome.

The leader of the researchers' group, Bodo Lange, said that “the fruit fly is a terrific system for investigating the centrosome, because the basic mechanisms of cell division are very similar between fly and human.”

Thanks to the latest innovation in automatic and robotic microscopes, scientists managed to find an entire series of proteins that are responsible for the separation of chromosomes, their structure and their number.

The chromosomes' characteristics are modified in cancer cells and the researchers believe that their findings will help make a big step in better understanding cell division and the development of cancers.

They say that this new research has shed some light on the abnormalities within cancer cells.

“Based on our findings, we hope to be able to unravel regulatory networks in the future, which will help to target and interfere with the division of cancer cells.”

The results were presented yesterday in the EMBO Journal.