Tension gets chromosomes oriented

sea-maid submitted, created time 7 months 2 days (www.jcb.org)

Using grasshopper cells in meiosis, Bruce Nicklas and Carol Koch show that attachments of mono-oriented chromosomes can be stabilized using a glass needle to pull on one of the chromosomes.

Thus tension between two kinetochores, generated only in the bi-oriented state, might discriminate between correct and incorrect attachments.

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CENP-E goes fishing for microtubules

sea-maid submitted, created time 7 months 3 weeks (www.jcb.org)

From this study, the scientist found CENP-E, an essential microtubule motor that clings to the kinetochore. It was used to explain how chromosomes retain connections to the microtubules that help move them around.

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Heterochromatin kills kinetochores

Tension and Microtubule dynamics

big pig submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.nature.com)

During mitosis, kinetochores attach chromosomes to the tips of growing and shortening microtubules. Asbury and colleagues demonstrate that the level of tension applied through optical tweezers to the budding yeast kinetochore component Dam1 attached to a microtubule tip determines parameters of microtubule dynamics and ultimately, the length of the mitotic microtubules.

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A novel cell response triggered by interphase centromere structural instability

Reviver submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.jcb.org)

"Interphase centromeres are crucial domains for the proper assembly of kinetochores at the onset of mitosis. However, it is not known whether the centromere structure is under tight control during interphase. This study uses the peculiar property of the infected cell protein 0 of herpes simplex virus type 1 to induce centromeric structural damage, revealing a novel cell response triggered by centromere destabilization. It involves centromeric accumulation of the Cajal body–associated coilin and fibrillarin as well as the survival motor neuron proteins

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: cell-cycle-regulating protein human renal cell cancer Adult T-cell Leukemia (ATL) cells kinetochores