Mitotic catastrophe is defined as a type of cell death driven by abnormal mitosis with apoptotic features, although differences in cellular structures and protein profiles of cells were reported between these deaths20. As DNA fragmentation is a hallmark of apoptosis, where it directly reduced cell viability, and given that DNA repair machinery is inefficient during mitosis, probably because mitotic chromosomes are highly condensed21, we postulated that DNA fragmentation might occur during chronic mitotic arrest and lead to the eventual cell demise. This postulation is further reinforced by our previous data which suggested a decrease in chromosomal compactness, thereby implying an increase in its susceptibility to DNase. Therefore, we investigated