SAC during early cell divisions: Sacrificing fidelity over timely division, regulated differently across organisms Chromosome alignment and segregation are left unsupervised from the onset of development until checkpoint activity is acquired, varying from species to species

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Early embryogenesis is marked by a frail Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC). The time of SAC acquisition varies depending on the species, cell size or a yet to be uncovered developmental timer. This means that for a specific number of divisions, biorientation of sister chromatids occurs unsupervised. When error-prone segregation is an issue, an aneuploidy-selective apoptosis system can come into play to eliminate chromosomally unbalanced cells resulting in healthy newborns. However, aneuploidy content can be too great to overcome, endangering viability.

SAC generates a diffusible signal to lengthen time spent in mitosis if needed, ensuring correct chromosome segregation, a fundamental factor in the generation of euploid cells. Thus, it remains puzzling what benefit could come from delaying SAC acquisition till later in the development. In this review, we describe what is known on SAC acquisition in distinct species and highlight pending research as well as potential applications for such knowledge.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2000174
JournalBioEssays
Volume43
Issue number3
Number of pages13
ISSN0265-9247
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

    Research areas

  • aneuploidy, chromosome segregation, early embryogenesis, SAC, SPINDLE ASSEMBLY CHECKPOINT, HUMAN PREIMPLANTATION EMBRYOS, CYCLE CONTROL, MIDBLASTULA TRANSITION, MICROTUBULE-BINDING, DNA-REPLICATION, XENOPUS, ATTACHMENT, PROTEIN, MPS1

ID: 253078466