Divide and divide

Almost 600 genes play a part in mitosis according to the results of a study into the most common form of cell division, which involved filming over 22,000 genes for 48 hours

Working with the Mitocheck consortium, scientists from European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) developed a new method using high-throughput imaging of living cells to uncover which genes are involved in mitosis. They inactivated each of the 22,000 human genes in HeLa cells – a widely studied line of cancer cells – one by one in a different set of cells and filmed those cells for 48 hours under the microscope.

“Without mitosis, nothing happens in life,” said Jan Ellenberg, who led the study, “and when mitosis goes wrong, you get defects like cancer.”

The scientists created a computer program to analyse the footage and automatically detect what characteristic defects cells display and in what order. They were able to identify genes involved in mitosis by grouping genes with similar effects.

The riddle of mitosis, however, has not been solved – a follow-up project called Mitosys will look at how the genes act at the molecular level. The scientists also hope to investigate how the 600 genes act in other cancers and healthy cells.

The films are being made available to the scientific community via www.mitocheck.org. “We now have a very rich resource for the scientific community,” said Ellenberg, “Scientists can go to the website, type in the name of their favourite gene, and watch what happens when it is silenced; they can find out what other genes have similar effects – all in a few mouse clicks instead of months or years of work in the lab!”

A video of a cell dividing under normal conditions is available under Laboratory News Videos at www.youtube.com/labnews