An image of a newt lung cell stained with fluorescent dyes during metaphase. The material stained green are the mitotic spindles and the material stained light blue are the chromosomes.

Metaphase, from the ancient Greek μετα (after) and φασις (stage), is a stage of mitosis in the eukaryotic cell cycle in which condensed chromosomes, carrying genetic information, align in the middle of the cell before being separated into each of the two daughter cells. Image File history File links Metaphase-flourescent. ... Image File history File links Metaphase-flourescent. ... “Eft” redirects here. ... Human respiratory system The lungs flank the heart and great vessels in the chest cavity. ... Staining is a biochemical technique of adding a class-specific (DNA, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates) dye to a substrate to qualify or quantify the presence of a specific compound. ... Fluorescence induced by exposure to ultraviolet light in vials containing various sized cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots. ... Look up dye in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Micrograph showing condensed chromosomes in blue and the mitotic spindle in green during prometaphase of mitosis The mitotic spindle (a. ... Figure 1: A representation of a condensed eukaryotic chromosome, as seen during cell division. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Mitosis is the way that in which a cell duplicates its chromosomes to generate two identical nuclei. ... Kingdoms Animalia - Animals Fungi Plantae - Plants Chromalveolata Protista Alternative phylogeny Unikonta Opisthokonta Metazoa Choanozoa Eumycota Amoebozoa Bikonta Apusozoa Cabozoa Rhizaria Excavata Corticata Archaeplastida Chromalveolata Animals, plants, fungi, and protists are eukaryotes (IPA: ), organisms whose cells are organized into complex structures by internal membranes and a cytoskeleton. ... The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a eukaryotic cell leading to its replication. ... Figure 1: A representation of a condensed eukaryotic chromosome, as seen during cell division. ... part of a DNA sequence A DNA sequence (sometimes genetic sequence) is a succession of letters representing the primary structure of a real or hypothetical DNA molecule or strand, The possible letters are A, C, G, and T, representing the four nucleotide subunits of a DNA strand (adenine, cytosine, guanine... Drawing of the structure of cork as it appeared under the microscope to Robert Hooke from Micrographia which is the origin of the word cell being used to describe the smallest unit of a living organism Cells in culture, stained for keratin (red) and DNA (green) The cell is the...

In metaphase, the chromosomes align in the middle of the cell.

An electron micrograph of a cell during metaphase.

Preceded by events in prometaphase and followed by anaphase, microtubules formed in prophase have already found and attached themselves to kinetochores in metaphase. The centromeres of the chromosomes convene themselves on the metaphase plate, an imaginary line that is equidistant from the two centrosome poles. This even alignment is due to the counterbalance of the pulling powers generated by the opposing kinetochores, analogous to a tug of war between equally strong people. In certain types of cells, chromosomes do not line up at the metaphase plate and instead move back and forth between the poles randomly, only roughly lining up along the midline. Image File history File links Metaphase. ... Image File history File links Metaphase. ... Figure 1: A representation of a condensed eukaryotic chromosome, as seen during cell division. ... Image File history File links Metaphase-electron-micrograph. ... Image File history File links Metaphase-electron-micrograph. ... An electron micrograph is a micrograph made with an electron microscope. ... In early prometaphase, the nuclear membrane has just degraded, allowing the microtubules to quickly interact with the kinetochores on the chromosomes, which have just condensed. ... Newt lung cell during late anaphase. ... Microtubules are one of the components of the cytoskeleton. ... Prophase, with the mitotic spindles stained green and the cell nucleus and chromatin stained blue. ... The kinetochore is the protein structure in eukaryotes which assembles on the centromere and links the chromosome to microtubule polymers from the mitotic spindle during mitosis. ... The centromere is a region of chromosomes with a special sequence and structure. ... The centrosome is the main microtubule organizing center (MTOC) of the cell as well as a regulator of cell-cycle progression. ...

Early events of metaphase can coincide with the later events of prometaphase, as chromosomes with connected kinetochores will start the events of metaphase individually before other chromosomes with unconnected kinetochores that are still lingering in the events of prometaphase.

One of the cell cycle checkpoints occurs during prometaphase and metaphase. Only after all chromosomes have become aligned at the metaphase plate, when every kinetochore is properly attached to a bundle of microtubules, does the cell enter anaphase. It is thought that unattached or improperly attached kinetochores generate a signal to prevent premature progression to anaphase, even if most of the kinetochores have been attached and most of the chromosomes have been aligned. Such a signal creates the mitotic spindle checkpoint. This would be accomplished by regulation of the Anaphase Promoting Complex, securin, and separase. Cell cycle checkpoints are control mechanisms that ensure the fidelity of cell division in eukaryotic cells. ... The spindle checkpoint blocks entry into anaphase until all chromosomes are properly attached to the mitotic spindle. ... Anaphase-promoting complex (APC) is a complex of several proteins which is activated during mitosis to initiate anaphase. ... Securin is a protein involved in anaphase triggering. ... Separase is a cysteine protease (EC 3. ...

Metaphase in the study of cancer and genetics

The analysis of metaphase chromosomes is one of the main tools of cancer cytogenetics. Malignant cells from solid tumors or leukemia samples are grown in short term culture and dropped onto microscope slides to generate metaphase preparations. Staining of the slides, often with Giemsa or Quinacrine, produces a pattern of in total up to several hundred bands. Inspection of the stained metaphases allows the determination of numerical and structural changes in the tumor cell genome, for example, losses of chromosomal segments or translocations, which may lead to chimeric oncogenes, such as bcr-abl in Chronic myelogenous leukemia. Figure 1: A representation of a condensed eukaryotic chromosome, as seen during cell division. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... A metaphase cell positive for the bcr/abl rearrangement using FISH Cytogenetics is the study of the structure of chromosome material. ... For malignant tumors specifically, see cancer. ... Leukemia or leukaemia (see spelling differences) is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow and is characterized by an abnormal proliferation (production by multiplication) of blood cells, usually white blood cells (leukocytes). ... Robert Hookes microscope (1665) - an engineered device used to study living systems. ... ... A complex of stains specific for the phosphate groups of DNA. Used in Giemsa banding (or G-banding) to stain chromosomes and often used to create a karyotype. ... Quinacrine (trade name: Atabrine) is a drug with a number of different medical applications. ... Chromosomal translocation of the 4th and 20th chromosome. ... An oncogene is a modified gene that increases the malignancy of a tumor cell. ... A karyotype showing translocation 9;22 Philadelphia chromosome or Philadelphia translocation is a specific genetic, chromosomal abnormality that is associated with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). ... Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is a form of chronic leukemia characterized by increased and unregulated clonal production of predominantly myeloid cells in the bone marrow. ...

Additionally, normal metaphase spreads are used as hybridization matrix for comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) experiments. Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) is a molecular-cytogenetic method for the analysis of regional changes in the DNA content of tumor cells. ...