Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0033036 (APC)
 10,214 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The mitotic checkpoint is a failsafe mechanism for the cell to ensure accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis. Mutations in genes encoding essential checkpoint proteins lead to chromosome instability and promote carcinogenesis. The BUB and MAD genes are essential components of the mitotic checkpoint pathway. BUB and MAD inhibit the ubiquitin ligase activity of the Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome (APC/C) during mitosis to ensure cells with unaligned chromosomes do not prematurely enter anaphase. Two models explain how the APC/C is inhibited by the checkpoint. The Sequestration Model postulates that Mad2 and BubR1 bind and sequester Cdc20, an APC/C activator, away from APC/C so substrates whose destruction drives mitotic exit are no longer ubiquitinated. In this model, the unattached kinetochore is postulated to catalytically convert Mad2 to a form that binds Cdc20. In the Direct Inhibition Model, the Mitotic Checkpoint Complex (MCC) consisting of BubR1, Bub3, Mad2 and Cdc20 binds and inhibits the APC/C independently of the kinetochore. However, the "wait anaphase" signal generated by unattached kinetochores sensitizes the APC/C to prolonged inhibition by the MCC. A single unattached kinetochore is proposed to amplify the "wait anaphase" signal through a kinase cascade involving checkpoint kinases such as hBubR1, hBub1 and Mps1.
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PMID:The mitotic checkpoint: a signaling pathway that allows a single unattached kinetochore to inhibit mitotic exit. 1459 37

Defects in the spindle assembly checkpoint are thought to be responsible for an increased rate of aneuploidization during tumorigenesis. Despite a plethora of information on the correlation between BUB-MAD gene expression levels and defects in the spindle checkpoint, very little is known about alteration of another important spindle checkpoint protein, Cdc20, in human cancer and its role in tumor aneuploidy. We observed overexpression of CDC20 in several oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines and primary head and neck tumors and provide evidence that such overexpression of CDC20 is associated with premature anaphase promotion, resulting in mitotic abnormalities in OSCC cell lines. We also reconstituted the chromosomal instability phenotype in a chromosomally stable OSCC cell line by overexpressing CDC20. Thus, abnormalities in the cellular level of Cdc20 may deregulate the timing of anaphase promoting complex (APC/C) in promoting premature anaphase, which often results in aneuploidy in the tumor cells.
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PMID:Overexpression of Cdc20 leads to impairment of the spindle assembly checkpoint and aneuploidization in oral cancer. 1677 88