'Hail Mary' mechanism can rescue cells with severely damaged chromosomes
Monday, June 5, 2017 - 03:02
in Biology & Nature
The DNA vital to the life of a cell is packaged in chromosomes, and a variety of checkpoints, repair mechanisms, and other cellular safeguards exist to maintain the integrity of the chromosomes during cell growth and division. Those safeguards can fail, however, and a cell may find itself trying to divide into two daughter cells with a loose chromosomal fragment drifting away from a broken chromosome.