%0 Journal Article
%T Mammalian cells lack checkpoints for tetraploidy, aberrant centrosome number, and cytokinesis failure
%A Connie Wong
%A Tim Stearns
%J BMC Cell Biology
%D 2005
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2121-6-6
%X Primary human diploid fibroblasts with intact cell cycle checkpoints were used in all experiments. Synchronized cells exhibited G1 arrest in response to division failure caused by treatment with either cytochalasin or the myosin II inhibitor blebbistatin. The role of tetraploidy, aberrant centrosome number, and increased cell size were tested by cell/cell and cell/cytoplast fusion experiments; none of these conditions resulted in G1 arrest. Instead we found that various drug treatments of the cells resulted in cellular damage, which was the likely cause of the arrest. When cytokinesis was blocked in the absence of damage-inducing drug treatments no G1 arrest was observed.We show that neither tetraploidy, aberrant centrosome number, cell size, nor failure of cytokinesis lead to G1 arrest, suggesting that there is no tetraploidy checkpoint. Rather, certain standard synchronization treatments cause damage that is the likely cause of G1 arrest. Since tetraploid cells can cycle when created with minimal manipulation, previous reports of a tetraploidy checkpoint can probably be explained by side effects of the drug treatments used to observe them.Cell cycle checkpoints preserve genome integrity by monitoring the fidelity of DNA replication and segregation. In mammalian somatic cells, the best-characterized checkpoints are the DNA damage/replication checkpoints and the mitotic spindle checkpoint. The DNA damage/replication checkpoints result in cell cycle arrest if DNA is not fully replicated, or is damaged [1]. The mitotic spindle checkpoint results in cell cycle arrest prior to anaphase if the spindle is not properly assembled [2].There is also evidence that defects in events relating to cell division itself can result in cell cycle arrest. Lanni and Jacks [3] and Casenghi et al.[4] found that mammalian cells that had adapted to microtubule depolymerization and exited mitosis without undergoing cytokinesis arrested in G1 of the subsequent cell cycle. Kurimura and Hirano
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2121/6/6