What centrosomes can teach us about tumor progression

Excerpt

During mitosis, centrosomes organize microtubules into spindle structures that mediate proper chromosomal segregation. Increased centrosome number, a characteristic common to a majority of breast tumors, is thought to cause chromosomal mis-segregations and thus lead to tumor aneuploidy. Because interphase centrosomes nucleate and organize the microtubule cytoskeleton, centrosome abnormalities could also contribute to cellular malignancy by disrupting overall cellular architecture. Given the dual significance of the centrosome, the authors examined the relationship between centrosomes (i.e. number, size and activity) and chromosomal instability (CIN), p53 mutation, tissue differentiation and aneuploidy in a total of 27 tissue samples from either normal breast (n = 7) or from tumors of five histologic grades ( diploid [n = 3], monosomy 17 [n = 3], stable aneuploid [n = 5], unstable aneuploid [n = 9]). …