The role of spindle dynamics in segregating chromosomes in mammalian oocytes and embryos

怀孕流产的主要原因之一，也是唐氏综合症的原因，是女性的缺陷？S卵子，这意味着卵子的染色体太少或太多。这种缺陷发生在卵子受精之前，此时卵子不再需要的染色体被分离并在称为减数分裂的特殊细胞分裂中被丢弃。这个过程中的错误被认为发生在大约10%-30%的卵子中，随着女性年龄的增长，错误的可能性变得更大。然而，目前还不知道为什么这种情况在鸡蛋中如此普遍，也不知道为什么随着女性年龄的增长，这个问题变得越来越严重。我们的方法是试图了解卵子中染色体通常是如何分离的，理解为什么错误如此普遍。我们开始了解到，在物理上分离染色体的力在卵子中产生的方式与在其他细胞中不同。我们想更好地了解鸡蛋和其他细胞之间的这种差异，以找出这是否可能是鸡蛋中错误非常常见的部分原因。

One of the major causes of pregnancy miscarriage, and also the cause of downs syndrome, is a defect in the woman?s egg which means that the egg has too few or too many chromosomes. This defect arises just before the egg is fertilised, when chromosomes which are no longer required by the egg are separated and discarded in a special cell division called meiosis. Errors in this process are thought to occur in about 10-30% of eggs, and become much more likely as the woman gets older. However, it is not known why this is so common in eggs, or why the problem gets worse as women get older. Our approach is to try to understand how chromosomes are normally separated in eggs, to understand why errors are so common. We are beginning to understand that the forces which physically separate the chromosomes are generated differently in eggs than in other cells. We want to better understand this difference between eggs and other cells, to find out whether this might be part of the reason why errors are very common in eggs.