I have recently performed an experiment in which I treated primary mesothelial cell with 300 uM of capsaicin and I recorded their behavior for 40 hours in order to see if there would be any apoptotic cell death (since it was the concentration that killed the mesothelioma cells in 24 hours). Although I have not seen any cell death as I hoped, I witnessed something that I have not even imagined before.
One of the cells in the flask first divided, then the second cell walked towards the mother cell and they got together to become one again. Despite the fact that the new cell attempted to divide a couple of times more, it did not quite manage it.
I seriously wonder what you people think about this behavior. Is it something common that I have not even heard of, or is it as rare as I thought it would be? I would appreciate any comment.
You can see the short video below. The cell I wrote about will appear on the left of the screen. I hope you will realize the same pattern. I showed the video some PhD students here in my laboratory to make sure I was not dreaming :-).
Thanks.
"Cell canibalism" can relate to this event.
See the attached articles.
Best regards
Robert
Thank you very much, Dr. Kiss. I truly appreciate your comment. I will read about the phenomenon which sounds quite interesting itself. However, I was not able to reach your attachments. Do you think I do something wrong?
Interesting question. Cell fusion (Syncytium) is a physiological process that actually occurs during different stages of development and differentiation. Combining of several mononuclear cells into multicuclear cells to maintain morphological design and functionality in both physiological development and pathological growth as well. Cell fusion can lead to Polyploid cells, which is one end result that can also come from cell canniblism.
In brief, it can happens in certain cell behavior in order to promote progression, either physiological (development, cell maturation) or pathological (cancer progression).
Hope this helped,
Kareem
Dear Sa,
I can "see" my attachments and also open them.
So, I do not know what is going wrong.
Dear Kareem,
Do you succeed in opening these files?
Best regards
Robert
This appears to be Cytokinesis failure- the cell completes mitosis but fails to separate, eventually the intercellular bridge recedes and the cytoplasm becomes one. The merged cell can remain binucleate or the nuclei can also merge. Either way, the merged cell is 4N with two centrosomes, and will enter the next cell division as 8N with 4 spindle poles (which may group to resemble two poles). The daughter cells of this next division (assuming cytokinesis occurs) are at risk of becoming aneuploid.
Cytokinesis failure can be caused by DNA damage or DNA trapped in the bridge (see "Aurora dependent abscission checkpoint" literature) or disruption to the orderly and timely assembly of the intercellular bridge and/or function of the abscission machinery. There is a large body of literature on cytokinesis. Cytokinesis failure is not uncommon in cultured cells.
Best of luck.
Dear Wendy,
Any "sexy" review validated in high peer-reviewed journals would be of great interest (at least for me).
Best regards
Robert
Hi Robert,
These may interest you.
Trends Cell Biol. 2013 Sep;23(9):433-41.
Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2012 Jul 11;13(8):483-8.
Nature 2005 Oct 13:437, 1043-1047
Best Wishes,
Wendy
Dear Sa,
I am sorry to say, but I am not convinced that this cell was ever been divided. Please, see attached image where the red line IMHO point to a cell organelle.
You have another cell showing the same behavior in the lower left quadrant.
Best regards,
Andras
Nobody has brought up muscle cells yet, but those do exactly what you are asking about. Satellite cells merge with muscle cells when the muscle cells take damage, adding their nucleus to the already multinucleated muscle cell. This is the basis for muscle training.
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