How Do Chromosomes Find Each Other?
#spacer{clear:left}#abc #sidebar{margin-top:1.5em}zSB(3,3) A new study from researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Naples, sheds some light on one of the mysteries of cell division – how chromosomes find each other. At a specific point in cell division, all of the chromosomes within a cell line up neatly in pairs in a process call colocalization. A number 1 chromosome lines up next to the other number 1, and the 2’s are next to the 2’s, and so on. Once all of the chromosomes are neatly aligned, the cell then splits with half of the chromosomes going into one new cell, and the other half going into the other new cell. While scientists have been able to view this elegant, elaborate and efficient system, they have very little understanding of how chromosomes actually recognize each other and how they know when to pair up. Studying X chromosomes, scientists looked at a very specific prote