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的爬行、爬行、交流和分裂能力。许多肌动蛋白结构的组装依赖于肌动蛋白成核蛋白，即formins。一个关键的问题是如何定位和调节formins在正确的时间在细胞表面的特定位点构建肌动蛋白结构。我们研究了裂殖酵母裂殖酵母的细胞极化和胞质分裂，并着重于formins的调节和功能。微管通过微管加末端蛋白teal p和tea 4p调节β-肌动蛋白和肌动蛋白电缆组装以实现细胞极化。细胞核通过一个核穿梭蛋白mid 1 p调节胞质分裂调控蛋白cdc 12 p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在启动细胞极化和胞质分裂中具有关键的调节功能。我们的具体目标集中在解剖这些基本过程背后的分子联系和调控网络。细胞分裂和极化是作为细胞功能和增殖的基础的普遍的细胞过程。例如，胞质分裂中的错误可能有助于癌细胞的发展。这些使用裂变酵母作为模式生物的研究与理解人类细胞生物学和疾病高度相关。

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.