Assembly and Placement of the Cell Division Ring

描述（由申请人提供）：不同的肌动蛋白结构驱动细胞极化、爬行、交流和分裂的能力。许多这些肌动蛋白结构的组装依赖于肌动蛋白成核蛋白，即形成蛋白。一个关键的问题是如何定位和调节形成蛋白，以便在正确的时间在细胞表面的特定位置构建肌动蛋白结构。本文研究了分裂酵母裂糖酵母（Schizosaccharomyces pombe）的细胞极化和细胞质分裂，重点研究了成形蛋白的调控和功能。微管通过微管+端蛋白teal p和tea4p调节sp的双胍和肌动蛋白电缆组件，以调节细胞极化。细胞核通过核穿梭蛋白mid1p调节胞质分裂formin cdc12p和肌动蛋白收缩环的定位。除了肌动蛋白组装外，我们的初步结果表明formins在启动细胞极化和细胞分裂中具有关键的调节功能。我们的具体目标集中在剖析这些基本过程的分子联系和调控网络。细胞分裂和极化是普遍存在的细胞过程，是细胞功能和增殖的基础。例如，细胞质分裂中的错误很可能导致癌细胞的发展。这些以裂变酵母为模式生物的研究对理解人类细胞生物学和疾病具有重要意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Diverse actin structures drive the ability of cells to polarize, crawl, communicate and divide. The assembly of many of these actin structures depends on the actin nucleating proteins, the formins. A key question is how formins are positioned and regulated to build actin structures at specific sites on the cell surface at the right times. We study cell polarization and cytokinesis in fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and focus on the regulation and function of formins. Microtubules regulate the formin forSp and actin cable assembly for cell polarization, through microtubule plus end proteins teal p and tea4p. The nucleus regulates the positioning of the cytokinesis formin cdc12p and the actin contractile ring through a nuclear shuttling protein mid1p. In addition to just actin assembly, our preliminary results suggest that formins have key regulatory functions in initiating cell polarization and cytokinesis. Our specific aims focus on the dissecting that the molecular links and regulatory networks underlying these fundamental processes. Cell division and polarization are universal, cellular processes that serve as the basis for cellular function and proliferation. Mistakes, for instance, in cytokinesis are likely to contribute to the development of the cancer cell. These studies using fission yeast as a model organism are highly relevant towards understanding human cell biology and disease.