Highly polyploid HeLa cells depend on RCC1 to maintain effective chromatin condensation
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Saunders, Hayden
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology
- Abstract
- Polyploidy, a common characteristic of cancer cell lines, puts extra pressure on the regulatory components of mitosis. Specifically, the process of chromatin condensation becomes especially critical due to the challenge of accurately aligning and segregating a multifold increase of DNA on the mitotic spindle. The regulator of chromosome condensation 1 (RCC1) is a protein bound to DNA throughout the cell cycle, which we have shown to be necessary for chromosome size scaling in C. elegans. We hypothesize that RCC1 levels increase in polyploid cells to compensate for this excess DNA content and promote adequate DNA condensation. We isolated populations of highly polyploid HeLa human cancer cells and found that RCC1 levels scale with DNA content in both highly polyploid and control HeLa cells. We believe that this scaling relationship is what affords highly polyploid cells the ability to maintain effective chromatin condensation and perhaps mitotic progression. Highly polyploid HeLa cells that have been stably transfected with a non-DNA-binding RCC1 mutant maintain their polyploidy through more rounds of division than do control polyploid populations. Analysis of metaphase chromosomes has revealed that these cells contain over-condensed chromosomes. We now believe that the loss of RCC1’s DNA-binding ability, which allows over-condensation of chromosomes, is what allows these highly polyploid cells to maintain effective rounds of mitosis, as smaller chromosomes are likely more easily segregated in highly polyploid cells.
- Date of publication
- spring 2016
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Maddox, Paul
- Degree
- Bachelor of Science
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 16
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