Hello everyone, I just ran into a random question while my buddies and I were studying... What will happen to the process of mitosis/meiosis when one of the chromosomes was damaged?
Hello everyone, I just ran into a random question while my buddies and I were studying... What will happen to the process of mitosis/meiosis when one of the chromosomes was damaged?
once you start mitosis, though, i am not aware of any intrinsic arrest mechanisms... are you? on a diffeerent note, i would guess the question is asking about some sort of breakage involving the centromeres that prevents proper chromatid separation or something.I agree with bleargh that this is not in the scope of the MCAT and if something like this does show up on the MCAT, it won't be a stand-alone and the passage will give you the info you need to answer it.
However, if you just want to know for the sake of knowing, two things could happen depending on how severe the damage is. If the damage/mutation/whatever isn't extensive, a normal cell will stop the cell cycle, repair the damage, and then, proceed through the cell cycle. If the damage is beyond repair, various intrinsic pathways will be activated (an important player is p53) that will arrest the cell cycle and lead to apoptosis. There are several checkpoints in the cell cycle that arrest the cell cycle if DNA damage is sensed. Hope this helps.
Actually, during mitosis, there's a spindle-assembly checkpoint to make sure that there's proper attachment of the spindle microtubules to the chromosomes (the checkpoint components are located on the kinetochores). Also, there's a chromosome segregation checkpoint, which senses the location of segregating chromosomes at the end of anaphase and regulates exit from mitosis.once you start mitosis, though, i am not aware of any intrinsic arrest mechanisms... are you? on a diffeerent note, i would guess the question is asking about some sort of breakage involving the centromeres that prevents proper chromatid separation or something.