RESEARCH Differential expression of c

ar ce ge de ing instability (CIN)-defined as the active gain or loss of whole cell cycle culminate in centrosome amplification (CA), de-Lee et al. Cell Division 2014, 9:3 http://www.celldiv.com/content/9/1/3sions, DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) and in invasive30322, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleor fragments of chromosomes during cell division- and aneuploidy-the state of having abnormal chromosome numbers- remain uncontested sources of genetic hetero-geneity and are associated with the most aggressive breast tumor types [1]. Equal segregation of chromosomes into fined as the presence of more than a pair of centrosomes within a cell [2,3]. For example, we reported that a subset of Her2+ cell lines display CA, which strongly correlated with increased protein expression of the centrosome kinases Nek2 and Plk4 [4]. Both of these proteins, when overex-pressed, induced CA in mammary epithelial cells previ-ously devoid of CA [5-7]. Emerging evidence suggests that CIN and aneuploidy, including single chromosome losses and polyploidy, can ensue from CA and/or cytokinesis de-fects [2,8-10]. CA has been detected in pre-malignant le