Spatial and temporal control of the meiotic cell cycle

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This research program is aimed at understanding one of the most basic biological processes, cell division. The study of cell division, or the cell cycle, is the study of how cells increase their numbers through replicating their DNA and cellular contents, and segregating these into two equal daughter cells. In multicellular organisms like humans or fruit flies, cell divisions during development produce the millions of cells that make up the adult. The basic cell cycle is composed of several layers of regulation by a large number of proteins that work together to ensure proper execution of events at the right time. These proteins are conserved between very different organisms, and patterns of regulation are similar in most cells. However, in the development of a complex organism, not all cell cycles are the same, and many are in fact quite different from the standard cell cycle. The fruit fly, Drosophila has been an ideal model organism for studying relatively complex processes that are difficult to study in other higher organisms. Our lab is using Drosophila to understand how the cell cycle is controlled in a particularly complex and specialized cell cycle, the female meiotic cell cycle. Female meiosis is the sequence of cell divisions that occur in the making of an egg. The cell cycles of female meiosis are unique in that they lack many of the regulatory mechanisms that are used by the typical cell cycle, and instead rely on a number of specialized cell cycle regulators and on a retooling of the standard regulators. We use techniques in genetics and biochemistry to identify the unique regulators of female meiosis. Our study of female meiosis-specific cell cycle regulators provides evidence of a sophisticated spatial regulation of the cell cycle that appears to exist as compensation for the absence of other means of cell cycle regulation. We are studying how this spatial control is brought about and how the temporal control of cell cycle progress interfaces with this additional level of control. These studies will provide insight into the complex controls that regulate the most basic of biological processes, cell division.