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Updated: Jun 7, 2026

Long-term Live-cell Imaging to Assess Cell Fate in Response to Paclitaxel
Published on: May 14, 2018
Short exposure to paclitaxel induces multipolar spindle formation and aneuploidy through promotion of acentrosomal
MingLei Bian1, JingYan Fu, Yan Yan
1MOE Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Differentiation and State Key Laboratory of Bio-membrane and Membrane Bio-engineering, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Abstract:
Paclitaxel is a widely used microtubule drug and cancer medicine. Here we report that by short exposure to paclitaxel at a low dose, multipolar spindles were induced in mitotic cells without centrosome amplification. Both TPX2 depletion and Aurora-A overexpression antagonized the multipolarity. Live cell imaging showed that some paclitaxel-treated cells accomplished multipolar cell division and a portion of the daughter cells went on to the next round of mitosis. The surviving cells grew into clones with varied genome content. The results indicated that an aneuploidy population could be induced by short exposure to paclitaxel at a low dose, implicating potential side effects of paclitaxel.
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