Biochemistry and Cytology of Cytokinesis

描述(申请人提供)：细胞质分裂是一个细胞分裂成两个子体的过程。当有丝分裂完成时，分裂沟在细胞中央聚集，这条沟收缩将细胞分成两个相等的部分。从基本的细胞生物学角度来看，胞质分裂是令人着迷的，因为它需要细胞骨架和细胞膜系统的协同活动。这也是一个可能成为抗癌治疗靶点的过程。我们对两个问题感兴趣：细胞如何将乳沟准确地定位在其中间，以及沟槽是如何组装的？我们将结合生物化学、显微镜和添加药物来解决这些问题。我们将继续我们对两种有趣的裂解沟蛋白的生化分析，我们发现的苯丙素和Septins，我们展示了一种可以组装成细丝的GTPase蛋白家族。我们想知道这些蛋白质在细胞中起什么作用，以及它们如何相互影响。我们将研究如何用青蛙卵提取物将新的膜定位于卵裂沟，以及香草素在这一过程中的作用。在细胞中心形成一条沟依赖于提供位置信息的微管。我们将探索与胞质分裂相关的微管是如何在细胞中组织的，以及它们使用什么机制将苯青素和肌球蛋白II靶向细胞中心，在那里建立沟槽。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cytokinesis is the process by which a cell divides into two daughters. When mitosis is complete, a cleavage furrow assembles in the middle of the cell and this furrow constricts to divide the cell into two equal parts. Cytokinesis is fascinating from a basic cell biology perspective, since it requires concerted activity of the cytoskeleton and membrane systems of the cell. It is also a process that could potentially be targeted in anti-cancer therapy. We are interested in two questions: how does the cell position the cleavage furrow exactly in its middle and how does the furrow assemble? We will address these by a combination of biochemistry, microscopy and addition of drugs. We will continue our biochemical analysis of two interesting cleavage furrow proteins, anillin, which we discovered, and septins, a family of GTPase proteins that we showed could assemble into filaments. We want to know what these proteins do in the cell and how they influence each other. We will study how new membrane is targeted to the cleavage furrow using extracts from frog eggs and the role of anillin in this process. Building a furrow at the center of the cell depends on microtubules that provide the positional information. We will probe how the microtubules associated with cytokinesis are organized in the cell and what mechanisms they use to target anillin and myosin II to the center of the cell to build a furrow there.