Question

What happens when there is a mistake during the process of mitosis? henrietta lacks?

Answer 1

Everything in the human body is composed of billions of cells, and every cell is constantly being recycled every day. Cells die for a number of reasons: malnutrition, infections, diseases, radiation, programmed life span, and etc. But in order for these cells to form, the cell has to go through an important, complex process—mitosis. Rebecca Skloot wrote a non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, that includes her teacher’s explanation of the importance of cell formation: “Defler paced the front of the classroom telling us how mitosis—the process of cell division—makes it possible for embryos to grow into babies, and for our bodies to create new cells for healing wounds or replenishing blood we've lost” (9). Considering that the cells of our bodies replicate independently, each individual cell needs to go through the correct phases of mitosis in order to produce a “healthy” duplicate of the original cell. Cells are the foundation of forming tissues; tissues combine together to form organs; organs work together to form systems and systems work together to form an organism. But what if a cell doesn't follow a simple step in mitosis? According to Rebecca, Defler said that “all it takes is one small mistake anywhere in the division process for cells to start growing out of control...Just one enzyme misfiring, just one wrong protein activation, and you could have cancer. Mitosis goes haywire, which is how it spreads” (9). If you get a common cold, there are thousands of medications that all treat that sickness and your immune system helps fight it off until you get better; however, cell formation is complex, so if something goes wrong during the process of mitosis, then the most common outcome is cancer. Mitosis errors can be a danger to future offspring because the parent/s can transfer his or her disorder to their children. Cancer cells are tough to destroy because if one cell makes a mistake during the process of mitosis, the error can result “in tumor formation and ultimately invasion of cancerous cells to other organs” (“Cell Division, Mitosis, and Meiosis”). Cancer cells obtain their supply of energy from the same place healthy cells get them, the space around them. In the beginning, Henrietta Lacks’s cervical cancer was only located in her cervix and the cancer caused her a little bit of discomfort; but, once the source of the problem wasn't treated, the cancer started spreading at a rapid rate. There are several other reasons why people get cancer (e.g. skin cancer and lung cancer), but cancer starts because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cells.