How do cells inherit the right chromosomes?

Abstract: The precise regulation of cell division is critical to processes such as self-renewal, proliferation and development. A key event in the cell cycle is the partitioning of every pair of duplicated chromosomes to daughter cells. Chromosomes segregate using their kinetochores, the specialized protein structures that are assembled on centromeric DNA sequences and attach to spindle microtubules. I will discuss our recent advances in isolating and reconstituting kinetochores and studying their behavior by biochemical and biophysical techniques in vitro. This work showed that tension directly regulates the activity of the Aurora B kinase. In addition, I will discuss our recent development of a single molecule assay to monitor kinetochore assembly in real time and what it has revealed about the centromeric nucleosome and the specificity of the centromeric DNA, work that ultimately is critical to understanding how cells maintain genomic stability.

biochemistrycancer biologychemical biologycell biologydevelopmental biologydrug discoveryevolutiongeneticsimmunologymolecular biologymicrobiologyneuroscienceplant sciencessystems biologybiotechnologybiological techniquesbiophysics

Audience: researchers in the discipline

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Colloquium zooming Molecular & Cellular Biology LUMS

Series comments: Zooming Molecular & Cellular Biology Colloquium was initiated on July 28th, 2020 by the Biology department at Syed Babar Ali School of Science & Engineering (SBASSE), Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The series follows through various topics which come under the ambit of Molecular and Cellular Biology and we’ve had the pleasure and honor of hosting some of the most knowledgeable scientists from around the globe. Organizers can be reached out at 24100162@lums.edu.pk or 24100001@lums.edu.pk for the Zoom link of individual talks. All lectures are LIVE streamed on SBASSE's official Facebook page.