New Technique Sheds Light on the Mysterious Process of Cell Division (1 of 2) (IMAGE)
Caption
A new technique that constructs models of primitive cells has demonstrated that the structure of a cell's membrane and cytoplasm may be as important to cell division as a cell's enzymes, DNA, or RNA. The study, which will be published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, may provide important clues to how life originated from non-life and how modern cells came to exhibit complex behaviors.This image shows the asymmetric division of a primitive model cell composed of a lipid membrane that encapsulates a polymer solution. Two coexisting lipid-membrane phase domains are labeled red and green, and a protein that concentrates into the dextran-rich aqueous-phase domain is labeled in blue. After the division, one of the daughter cells inherits only red membrane and encapsulates the dextran-rich aqueous phase along with most of the protein molecules. The other daughter inherits both red and green membrane encapsulating the PEG-rich aqueous phase.
Credit
Christine Keating lab, Penn State University
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