Interpretations
One major claim of this paper is that the knockdown of cenRNA#4 leads
to chromosomal segregation defects. The explanatory model is that the
cenRNA is responsible for binding and loading CENP-A to the centromere,
and that segregation defects occur upon depletion of the cenRNA due to a
lack of CENP-A. In Figure 4, the authors demonstrate that a higher
proportion of cells experience segregation defects in HeLa cells by IF
with 𝛼-tubulin and CENP-B co-staining. If it were observed in an IF
experiment that CENP-A was depleted or found at lower levels in the
knockdown conditions, it would provide more support for this mechanistic
hypothesis. A more speculative claim of the paper is that because the
authors observe fewer foci of 𝛼-satellite RNAs in HeLa nuclei than
centromeres, cenRNAs may bind to centromeres in trans. This hypothesis
is sound, yet could incorporate more support from further IF experiments
that definitively show that one cenRNA deriving from one chromosome is
localized to a different chromosome.