What role do spindle poisons play in cancer/cancer treatment?

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The question asks about the role of spindle poisons in cancer and its treatment, so we need to connect how these agents affect cell division and cancer cell viability.
Option a) 'Spindle poisons mutate the mitotic spindle and cause cancer during cell division in the M phase' is inaccurate because spindle poisons interfere with spindle dynamics to disrupt mitosis, but they do not mutate the spindle to cause cancer during division; their therapeutic aim is to halt proliferation, not to induce new cancer mutations in normal cells.
Option b) 'Aurora B kinase malfunctions and causes the cell to become cancerous' oversimplifies the mechanism. While Aurora B is a mitotic regulator and can influence chromosome segregation, spindle poisons act primarily by disrupting microtubules rather than specifically causing Aurora B malfunctions to drive oncogenesis.
Option c) 'Spindle poisons cause a mitotic catastrophe failure at the M checkpoint' correctly describes the action: spindle poisons (like microtubule inhibitors) disrupt spindle assembly, leading to improper chromosome alignment and a mitotic catastrophe at the M (metaphase/anaphase) checkpoint, which can trigger cell death in rapidly dividing cancer cells.
Option d) 'Aurora A kinase malfunctions and causes the cell to become cancerous' is also a description of a kinase misregulation scenario, but it does not capture the core action of spindle poisons, which target microtubules themselves rather than specifically aurora A kinase activity, and it misrepresents the general mechanism by which these drugs exert anti-cancer effects.
In summary, the prevalent therapeutic rationale for spindle poisons is to disrupt spindle function during mitosis, provoking mitotic failure and cell death, rather than mutating spindles, general kinase malfunctions, or directly inducing oncogenesis in cancer cells.

What role do spindle poisons play in cancer/cancer treatment?

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