title: Biased DNA segregation in Drosophila male germline stem cells.
abstract: The immortal strand hypothesis, which emerged four decades ago, proposes that certain cells retain a template copy of chromosomal DNA to protect against replication-induced mutations. As the interest in stem cells rose in recent years, researchers speculated that stem cells, which must maintain proliferative capacity throughout the life of the organism, may be the population that most needs the strong protection afforded by immortal strand segregation. Alternative hypotheses have also been proposed to explain observed non-random sister chromatid segregation. We recently found that Drosophila male germline stem cells segregate sister chromatids non-randomly, but such bias was limited to the sex chromosomes. Interestingly, the biased segregation does not lead to immortal strand segregation. We will discuss the implications of this observation and molecular mechanisms, which might be applicable to non-random sister chromatid segregation in other systems as well.
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences Institute, Center for Stem Cell Biology, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Medicine, Cellular and Molecular Biology Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States. Electronic address: yukikomy@umich.edu.
authors.forename: Yukiko M
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Yamashita
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002842:Chromatids / Q000378:metabolism; D020090:Chromosome Segregation; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005854:Germ Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA
keywords: Asymmetric cell division; Drosophila; Niche; Stem cells