Unravelling cell division

At this very moment thousands of our body's cells are duplicating and dividing. This is the mechanism by which the body repairs damaged tissues and regenerates others like skin and hair. It involves a fairly complex process known as "mitosis", during which the cell duplicates its genetic material and separates it into two identical halves, which are then split apart. It is crucially important that this process works well each and every time it takes place, as otherwise it could give rise to mutations that might trigger diseases such as cancer.

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A new quality control pathway in the cell

Proteins are important building blocks in our cells and each cell contains millions of different protein molecules. They are involved in everything from structural to regulatory aspects in the cell. Proteins are constructed as linear molecules but they only become functional once they are folded into specific three-dimensional structures. Several factors, like mutations, stress and age, can interfere with this folding process and induce protein misfolding. Accumulated misfolded proteins are toxic and to prevent this, cells have developed quality control systems just like any other production chain or manufacturing process.

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