Question

the drug taxol, or paclitaxel, is used to treat patients with a variety of cancers, including breast, lung and ovarian cancers. the drug works by stabilizing microtubules, and preventing their disassembly. the goal of this drug is to prevent dividing cells from completing mitosis. as a result, cancerous cells can no longer divide. in a cell treated with taxol, at what stage of mitosis will the cells arrest?

Answer 1

Taxol, or paclitaxel, is a chemotherapy drug that prevents cancer cells from completing mitosis by stabilizing microtubules during anaphase, thus impeding the separation of sister chromatids and cell division.

Step-by-step explanation:

The drug Taxol, or paclitaxel, functions by stabilizing microtubules and preventing their disassembly within cancer cells. This stabilization impedes the cell cycle during mitosis, specifically during anaphase. Normally, during anaphase, sister chromatids are pulled apart into separate daughter cells, but with the presence of Taxol this process is inhibited because the microtubules cannot shorten to separate the chromatids. Therefore, the cancer cells are unable to successfully divide.

Chemotherapy drugs like Taxol act to disrupt cell division by targeting mitotic structures, affecting particularly the microtubule dynamics which are necessary for spindle fiber formation and function. In contrast to other mitotic disruptors such as vincristine and colchicines, which prevent microtubule assembly, Taxol promotes assembly and stabilizes the microtubules, ultimately preventing their disassembly during cell division. This unique action results in the arrest of the cell cycle during the mitotic phase where chromosome segregation is supposed to occur.