Latest Mitosis Stories

UA's nanotechnology research group is using proteins from living cells to "grow" wires on microchips.Their work promises to revolutionize the way microchips are made by combining biology and electronics "” leading to smaller, faster and more efficient circuits for cell phones, computers, MP3 players and a thousand other microelectronic devices.But that's only one of the benefits of this research.The work holds promise in several areas, such as improving testing methods for...

SANTA CRUZ, CA-- Scientists have long known that the social insects in the order Hymenoptera--which includes ants, bees, and wasps--have an unusual mechanism for sex determination: Unfertilized eggs develop into males, while fertilized eggs become females. But the development of an unfertilized egg into an adult (called parthenogenesis) remains a mysterious process. One mystery has been the origin of the centrosome, an essential cellular component that is ordinarily derived from the sperm...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Biologists at Florida State University have uncovered the pivotal role of a gene called "Cut" that acts as a sort of middleman in cell-to-cell communication. A DNA-binding protein, Cut interprets and transcribes the developmental signals sent through the "Notch" gene, which regulates a layer of epithelial cells as they replicate and divide. But when Cut garbles those signals the result is uncontrolled cell proliferation, sometimes with dire genetic and...

Cells control mitosis (cell division) by assembling a biochemical switch to block it or by disassembling the switch to trigger it, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Technical University of Munich. The researchers found that when the switch called SCFNIPA is intact, levels of an enzyme called cyclin B1 drop, preventing the enzyme from activating a third protein called Cdk1. By blocking the interaction between cyclin B1 and Cdk1, SCFNIPA prevents the...

Microtubules need a helping hand to find chromosomes in dividing egg cells, scientists have discovered. Although it was generally accepted that microtubules act alone as the cellular ropes to pull chromosomes into place, a new study by researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) shows that this is not the case. They found that in large cells such as animal eggs, something else is needed to move the chromosomes into the correct location - fibres of the cytoskeletal molecule...