Question:

Colchicine treated cells are arrested in

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Colchicine is commonly used in labs to arrest cells in metaphase for karyotyping.
  • S phase
  • Prophase
  • G1 phase
  • Metaphase
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The Correct Option is D

Approach Solution - 1

Colchicine disrupts microtubule polymerization, preventing spindle formation, which arrests cells in metaphase.
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Approach Solution -2

Mechanistic walk-through of the cell cycle:
During normal mitosis, spindle microtubules assemble from tubulin dimers and attach to kinetochores so that duplicated chromosomes can be pulled apart at anaphase. Colchicine binds free tubulin and blocks its polymerisation into microtubules, so a functional spindle apparatus never forms. Chromosomes are still able to condense and align at the cell's equatorial plane, since these steps do not require a completed spindle, but without spindle fibres to pull sister chromatids toward opposite poles, the spindle-assembly checkpoint is never satisfied and the cell cannot proceed into anaphase. The cell therefore becomes stuck with condensed, aligned chromosomes, which corresponds to metaphase, confirming option 4.
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