Scientists Revealed the Mystery of Cell Proliferation
According to scientific materials, before cells divide, they create so much genetic material that it must be twined onto spools, proteins called histones, before the two new cells can split apart. Moreover, there histones must multiply at the same moment that cell doubles its DNA. If not, the new DNA could not function normally. Cell proliferation may seem common in all tissue development, but researchers do not well understand how the amount of histones increases to match the increase of new DNA in cell proliferation.
To unveil this mystery, scientists have spent years to screen zebrafish with developmental mutations. In this study, they identified one zebrafish strain carrying a mutation in the stem-loop binding protein (SLBP). Studies before had noted SLBP as a significant factor for regulating the level or histones by the study of in vitro. This present study has proved SLBP to be important for the development.
People may think that a zebrafish without a fully functional SLBP gene would die; however, this study has shown that the fish would somehow bypass the SLBP pathway, and continue proliferation.
Actually, this finding was not only bonded to zebrafish. Zebrafish SLBP is homologous to human SLBP, so this development might happen in humans, but this needs further verifications, no sure statements.
Article link: Scientists Revealed the Mystery of Cell Proliferation
Tags: SLBP, vitro, cell proliferation