Using a new method they developed for measuring the dry mass of cells, the researchers found that cells lose about 4 percent of their mass as they enter cell division. The researchers believe that this emptying of trash helps cells to give their offspring a 'fresh start,' without the accumulated junk of the parent cell. 'Our hypothesis is that cells might be throwing out things that are building up, toxic components or just things that don't function properly that you don't want to have there. It could allow the newborn cells to be born with more functional contents,' says Teemu Miettinen, an MIT research scientist and the lead author of the new study. Scott Manalis, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering in the departments of Biological Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, is the senior author of the paper, which appears today in eLife. MIT biological engineering undergraduates Kevin Ly and Alice Lam are...
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