Published on Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org/cms)
Orphan chromosomes find their way home
By Chris Surridge
Created 2007-02-07 07:23

"New and Noted" in PLoS ONE

Artificially Introduced Aneuploid Chromosomes Assume a Conserved Position in Colon Cancer Cells [1]
Sengupta K, Upender MB, Barenboim-Stapleton L, Nguyen QT, Wincovitch SM, et al. (2007) PLoS ONE 2(2): e199. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000199

Cancer cells have many changes in their genetic material, often including additional copies of specific chromosomes. This study shows that such supernumery chromosomes are integrated into the functioning of cells, taking up the same position in the nucleus as the native pair. Some feature of the chromosome, gene density perhaps, seems to act as a "zip code" to determine its nuclear localization.

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[1] http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000199