近日，一项刊登于国际杂志eLife上的研究论文中，来自加州大学戴维斯分校（UC Davis）的研究人员通过研究发现，植物体内或许也会出现像某些人类癌症和发育障碍所引发的“染色体破碎”现象，目前研究者仅在动物细胞中发现存在“染色体破碎”的现象，而本文研究中研究人员却发现在植物中也存在这样的现象。

　　本文研究发现或可应用于植物育种中来帮助开发仅遗传亲本一方遗传物质的单倍体植物，研究者Ek Han Tan博士表示，尽管携带染色体破碎的植物并不会患癌症，但对其进行研究或可帮助癌症研究者来利用拟南芥属植物作为模型来研究癌症发展过程中染色体的行为变化等研究领域。

　　染色体破碎包括将染色体切割成为明显的随机片层，同时再以一种杂乱的方式进行组装，在这一过程中往往会导致某些染色体片层缺失或者顺序位置错乱；一般来说染色体破碎并不是一件好事儿，在人类机体染色体破碎会对机体带来灾难性的损伤。

　　最后Luca Comai教授说道，我们目前正在对着丝粒进行研究，着丝粒可以控制染色体的运动，并且在细胞分裂的过程中将母细胞分成两个子代细胞；文章中我们发现，当携带较弱功能着丝粒的拟南芥模型突变体和携带正常着丝粒的植物进行交叉时，其所产生的胚芽都会遭受染色体破碎，进而影响后代杂交植物的生长；后期研究人员将通过更为深入的研究阐明植物中发生染色体破碎的分子机制，并利用这种机制来改善当前的植物育种方式。

　　doi:10.7554/eLife.06516

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　　Catastrophic chromosomal restructuring during genome elimination in plants

　　Ek Han Tan, Isabelle M Henry, Maruthachalam Ravi, Keith R Bradnam, Terezie Mandakova, Mohan PA Marimuthu, Ian Korf, Martin A Lysak, Luca Comai, Simon WL Chan.

　　The process could be applied in plant breeding as a way to create haploid plants with genetic material from only one parent, said Ek Han Tan, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Davis Department of Plant Biology and first author on the paper. Although plants don't get cancer, it might also allow cancer researchers to use the laboratory plant Arabidopsis as a model to study chromosome behavior in cancer. Chromothripsis involves slicing chromosomes into apparently random pieces, and reassembling it like a broken vase, often with pieces completely missing or in the wrong place. Generally speaking, this is not a good thing, although in one recently published case a woman was cured of a genetic disorder when the gene responsible was lost due to chromothripsis. Han Tan, Professor Luca Comai and colleagues were studying centromeres, the handles by which chromosomes are moved and allocated to daughter cells during cell division. They discovered that when a variant of the model plant Arabidopsis with weakened centromeres is crossed to a plant with normal centromeres, the resulting embryos undergo chromothripsis, the cut-and-reassembly process leading to 'shattered chromosomes.'