Research Paper|Volume 3, Issue 12|pp 1206—1212

Relationship of spindle assembly checkpoint fidelity to species body mass, lifespan, and developmental rate

Antonello Lorenzini¹, Lauren S. Fink^2,³, Thomas Stamato⁴, Claudio Torres², Christian Sell²

¹University of Bologna; Department of Biochemistry “G. Moruzzi”; Bologna, Italy
²Drexel University College of Medicine; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Philadelphia, PA 19129, USA
³Current address; Fox Chase Cancer Center; Department of Cancer Biology; Philadelphia, PA 19046, USA
⁴Lankenau Institute for Medical Research; Wynnewood, PA 19096, USA

Received: December 23, 2011Accepted: December 26, 2011Published: December 26, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Lorenzini et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

We have examined the tolerance of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC), as measured by the appearance of tetraploid cells in the presence of a microtubule inhibitor, in a series of primary cell strains derived from species with diverse lifespan and body size. We find that the integrity of the SAC varies among these species. There is a robust correlation between the integrity of the SAC and body size, but poor correlation with longevity and parameters of species development (i.e., time of female fertility, gestation length, and postnatal growth rate). The results suggest that fidelity of the SAC co-evolved more closely with the number of mitoses needed to reach adulthood than with species lifespan.