Chromosome-membrane interactions during cell division

Accurate cell division is essential for life. During development, we start life as a single cell and become large assemblies made of ~40 trillion cells, and this process of cell division continues in adult life to repair injury and replenish dead cells. Cell division involves the accurate segregation of genetic material between the two daughter cells. Errors in this process can lead to cell death, cancer or birth defects.
At mitosis, the duplicated chromosomes are aligned by the mitotic spindle and then moved to opposite poles of the cell. This is a highly regulated process where errors are minimised to ensure high fidelity cell division. However, chromosomes can become missegregated which leads to aneuploidy (an unequal number of chromosomes in the daughter cells) or micronuclei formation. We are interested in the role of endomembranes in influencing the outcome of missegregated chromosomes. We have found that misaligned chromosomes can become entangled in endomembrane and this may promote the formation of a micronucleus. This project will investigate how chromosomes become engulfed, whether this can be prevented and how the content of the micronucleus membrane differs from that of the main nucleus.