Differentiating the roles of microtubuleassociate

Authors: Yasutaka Kakui Masamitsu Sato

Publish Date: 2015/09/17

Volume: 125, Issue: 2, Pages: 309-320

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Abstract

Meiosis is a specialised cell division process for generating gametes In contrast to mitosis meiosis involves recombination followed by two consecutive rounds of cell division meiosis I and II A vast field of research has been devoted to understanding the differences between mitotic and meiotic cell divisions from the viewpoint of chromosome behaviour For faithful inheritance of paternal and maternal genetic information to offspring two events are indispensable meiotic recombination which generates a physical link between homologous chromosomes and reductional segregation in which homologous chromosomes move towards opposite poles thereby halving the ploidy The cytoskeleton and its regulators play specialised roles in meiosis to accomplish these divisions Recent studies have shown that microtubuleassociated proteins MAPs including tumour overexpressed gene TOG play unique roles during meiosis Furthermore the conserved mitotic protein kinase Polo modulates MAP localisation in meiosis I As Polo is a wellknown regulator of reductional segregation in meiosis the evidence suggests that Polo constitutes a plausible link between meiosisspecific MAP functions and reductional segregation Here we review the latest findings on how the localisation and regulation of MAPs in meiosis differ from those in mitosis and we discuss conservation of the system between yeast and higher eukaryotesMS is supported by GrantsinAid for Scientific Research B from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science JSPS by the Naito Foundation by the Kato Memorial Bioscience Foundation by the Sumitomo Foundation and by Waseda University Grants for Special Research Projects 2014K6168 2014B318 and 2015A057 YK is supported by JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research Abroad

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