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DEPUTY Defensins is a protein that can halt DR Cytokinesis.
My steam project will be correlating the stages of mitosis to the cell cycle s with cancer cells present. Mitosis is a specific phase to the division of cells during the cell cycle. The magic within the cells division does not just take place within mitosis though. Many events need to happen chronologically, many events that could lead to mistakes. What triggers the cell to let it know that it is time to divide. Is it regulated? How does it prevent mutations? When cancer is present, how does the cell combat it? These are just a few of the questions I asked myself when trying to determine what I wanted to write about for this project, and I decided to write about cancer since an overwhelming number of my family members went through a gruesome battle with cancer.
Mitosis has 6 phases: prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and cytokinesis. Prophase is the first phase, and this is when the chromosome condenses, and the spindles began forming from the centrioles that have moved to opposite poles of the cell. Prometaphase is the next phase and the nuclear envelope containing the chromosomes breaks down. Metaphase is third phase, and all the chromosomes are pushed and pulled by the microtubules attached at the kinetochore to align in the chromosomes in the center of the cell. Anaphase is the next phase pulling the chromosomes apart to opposite ends of the cell. During telophase a nuclear envelope begins to form individually around both the old chromosome and the identical copy to decondense. The spindles also disappear. The last phase is cytokinesis and during this phase the cell becomes pinched down the middle dividing the cell in two.
The Cells must then grow through a series of other phases known as the cell cycle. Interphase is where the cell will spend most of its time. During this phase you will see the cell grow, replicate DNA, and prepare for mitosis. Within this phase it has checkpoints. These check points were designed to prevent the cell from dividing if there was something wrong with it i.e., damaged DNA, improper replication. If this is the case, then something known as apoptosis will occur. Cell division is essential for cell proliferation and is regulated by several key molecules and rigorous cell cycle checkpoints (Wang et al., 2024). The family of proteins that regulates the cell division are known as cell division cycle-associated proteins (CDCA). When giving a prognosis of cancer it had become apparent that the CDCA proteins were present in higher levels. The expression at higher levels were consistently active in the following locations: testes, lymphoid tissues and bone marrow which determined they had a comprehensive role in cell division. All CDCA’s are involved in the regulation of the cell cycle and are mainly found in the nuclei. This is where DNA replication occurs. CDCAs promote tumor growth. DNA must be transcribed and translated to produce RNA proteins. The CDCA is classified into these regulations. This is just one way to identify cancer a cancer prognosis within the cell cycle. If the cell continues to grow and makes it through all the check points, then the cancer will spread.
Defensins are a protein that can halt cell growth and division. Defensins have been shown to induce cell cycle arrest at specific phases, such as G1 or S, in various cell types. This ability to halt cell cycle progression can have implications for controlling cell proliferation and preventing excessive cell division (Li et al., 2024). They can impact normal cells and cancerous cells. Disrupting the actions of these proteins could completely throw the cell cycle into disarray. Cells need regulation to survive. You might think that if we just halt the cell cycle when cancer is present and somehow dump it into the trash then all the cancer problems would go away but this is not true. Cell regulation is vulnerable. It plays a vital role in the division of cells. If the cell was to halt at a specific stage and was to not continue growing, then it would never make it to mitosis to divide. Exploring the crosstalk between defensins and the cell cycle may contribute to our understanding of diseases characterized by dysregulated cell proliferation, such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders (Li et al., 2024). Division of our cells is necessary for all life. A prosperous life.
CITED SOURCES
Li, S., Mu, R., & Guo, X. (2024). Defensins regulate cell cycle: Insights of defensins on cellular proliferation and division. Life Sciences, 349, 122740.
Wang, Z., Ren, M., Liu, W., Wu, J., & Tang, P. (2024). Role of cell division cycle-associated proteins in regulating cell cycle and promoting tumor progression. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Reviews on Cancer, 1879(5), 189147.