Biological Science (6th Edition)
Biological Science (6th Edition)
6th Edition
ISBN: 9780321976499
Author: Scott Freeman, Kim Quillin, Lizabeth Allison, Michael Black, Emily Taylor, Greg Podgorski, Jeff Carmichael
Publisher: PEARSON
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Chapter 12, Problem 11PIAT

The bark of the Pacific yew tree (Taxusbrevifolia) was the original source of one of the most effective drugs for treating tumors of the breast, lung, and other sites. Taxol, a chemical extracted from this bark, kills actively replicating cells by inhibiting the depolymerization of microtubules. Why are microtubules good targets for killing cancerous cells?

During what phases in the cell cycle would you expect there to be large changes in the polymerization or depolymerization of microtubules? Why are these changes necessary?

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The drug chloral hydrate prevents elongation of microtubules by preventing the addition of new subunits to the growing end. During which stage of mitosis would chloral hydrate be most harmful?
The lifetime of a microtubule in a mammalian cell, between its formation by polymerization and its spontaneous disappearance by depolymerization, varies with the stage of the cell cycle. For an actively proliferating cell, the average lifetime is 5 minutes in interphase and 15 seconds in mitosis. If the average length of a microtubule in interphase is 20 μm, how long will it be during mitosis, assuming that the rates of microtubule elongation due to the addition of tubulin subunits in the two phases are the same?
The cell cycle is highly regulated and involves many steps to ensure that a cell is ready to divide. For this reason, cells cycle between interphase and mitosis.  Which of the following describes the consequence of a severe disruption of interphase in cells in healthy tissue? Disruption of interphase will have no effect on mitosis because they are two completely independent processes. Disruption of interphase will lead to a faster and more efficient mitotic cycle, which will result in increased cell division and tissue growth. Disruption of interphase will trigger the cell to switch to a mitotic phase and repeatedly divide, which will result in the massive proliferation of the cells and heightened tissue growth. Disruption of interphase will result in the cell being unable to synthesize proteins and organelles required to divide, which will result in the cell not passing key checkpoints and ceasing to divide.
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