New insights on regulation of mitosis could improve chemotherapy treatments

An important new study from cellular biology researchers describes a drug combination that enhances chemotherapy's cancer-killing powers:

Chemotherapy's ultimate goal is to destroy a person's cancer, but one common type of the treatment known as antimicrotubule chemotherapy has the tendency to let cancer cells slip through at the exact time that it's supposed to kill them-during the cell division phase known as mitosis.

These dividing cells leave through a process known as mitotic slippage. It's here that UGA researchers have targeted their studies-in understanding how mitotic slippage occurs and how to prevent it. According to the study published Oct. 24 in the Journal of Cell Biology, they found a drug combination that caused 100 percent mitotic cell death, thereby significantly improving the killing efficiency of antimicrotubule chemotherapy drugs.

The drug combination they discovered "could revolutionize chemotherapy by dramatically improving one of the main classes of chemotherapy drugs," said the study's senior author, Edward Kipreos, a professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of cellular biology.

To get to that treatment, they first uncovered the cause of mitotic slippage: the action of the protein complex CRL2-ZYG11. Inactivating this protein complex can significantly improve antimicrotubule chemotherapy's ability to kill mitotic cells.

Critical new research approaching disease treatment regimes from a fundamental science perspective. Congratulations to the Kipreos lab, on many levels. New therapies like this can potential offer major benefits to society.

Image: Edward Kipreos, left, and a mitotic spindle in a human cell showing microtubules in green, chromosomes (DNA) in blue, via wikimedia commons