BIOMECANET

Cell division is one of the most fundamental processes in life and requires from a radical transformation before a cell can split. The ERC-funded BIOMECANET project will study the mechanisms that involve out-of-equilibrium chemistry of many components playing a role in cell division. It will rebuild the mechanism, reassembling the engine of division. Specifically, the project’s goal is to unravel the cell division interplay by re-engineering it in vitro as well as by modelling it in silico. 

To do so, BIOMECANET will mobilize an unrivalled catalogue of purified human proteins to reconstitute four fundamental and interlinked biochemical and mechanical protein networks:  

1. The cell cycle oscillator with the spindle assembly checkpoint, 

2. The metaphase spindle,  

3. The chromosome bi-orientation machinery of kinetochores, and  

4. The central spindle and its links with the actin cytoskeleton required for cell fission. 

Thus, this project will analyse the emergence of complex biological functions by combining cellular reconstituted networks while integrating data on temporal control and mechanical forces, which will certainly enhance the scale and scope of in vitro reconstitutions.