Tracking mitotic defects via time-lapse photography

As tumors generate, there is a progression in genomic instability derived from chromosomal rearrangement and instability. Often, these manifest themselves as defects in mitosis, frequently as lagging chromosomes, multipolar spindles, and anaphase bridges. Lagging chromosomes are the result of inaccurate chromosomal division in mitosis, thus jeopardizing the genome of an organism’s offspring; they derive from several errors, such as failure of a chromosome to attach to the mitotic spindle. The goal of this project has been to characterize the mechanisms of lagging chromosomes in the cancer cell line UPCI:SCC103. Our laboratory’s work has shown that treatment with certain carcinogens increase the rate of mitotic defect. To further our understanding these defects, we are monitoring the progression of lagging chromosomes in UPCI:SCC103 cells with live cell analysis, using GFP-tagged histone H2B to track their appearance and fate, so to distinguish between the possible causes and resolutions of this mitotic defect.