Keeping centrioles in check to ensure proper cell division

The duplication of cellular contents and their distribution to two daughter cells during cell division are amongst the most fundamental features of all life on earth. How cell division occurs and is coordinated with organismal development is a subject of intense research interest, as is how this process malfunctions in the development of tumors. Alex Dammermann and his team from the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, together with his collaborators from the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), have been investigating how the duplication of one key component of the cell division machinery, named centrioles, is coordinated with the cell cycle - the series of events that lead to a cell's division. Their results are published in the journal Current Biology today. Centrioles - orchestrators of cell division - When our cells divide, their genetic material - in the form of X-shaped chromosomes - is aligned in the middle of the cell and segregated to opposite poles of the cell by a spindle of long tubular fibers, so-called microtubules. The structures that organize the two poles of the spindle in animal cells are called centrosomes. Each centrosome consists of two cylindrically shaped centrioles that are positioned perpendicular to each other and surrounded by an amorphous dense mass called the pericentriolar material (PCM).