Spatial and temporal control of the meiotic cell cycle

这个研究项目旨在了解最基本的生物过程之一——细胞分裂。对细胞分裂或细胞周期的研究，是研究细胞如何通过复制DNA和细胞内容物来增加它们的数量，并将它们分离成两个相等的子细胞。在像人类或果蝇这样的多细胞生物中，细胞在发育过程中分裂产生成体的数百万个细胞。基本的细胞周期是由数层调控组成的，这些调控由大量的蛋白质共同作用，以确保在正确的时间正确地执行事件。这些蛋白质在非常不同的生物体之间是保守的，并且在大多数细胞中调节的模式是相似的。然而，在复杂生物体的发育过程中，并非所有的细胞周期都是相同的，事实上，许多细胞周期与标准细胞周期大不相同。果蝇一直是研究在其他高等生物中难以研究的相对复杂过程的理想模式生物。我们的实验室正在使用果蝇来了解细胞周期是如何在一个特别复杂和特殊的细胞周期中被控制的，即雌性减数分裂细胞周期。雌性减数分裂是在卵细胞形成过程中发生的一系列细胞分裂。女性减数分裂的细胞周期是独特的，因为它们缺乏典型细胞周期所使用的许多调节机制，而是依赖于许多专门的细胞周期调节因子和标准调节因子的重组。我们利用遗传学和生物化学技术来鉴定女性减数分裂的独特调节因子。我们对女性减数分裂特异性细胞周期调节因子的研究提供了细胞周期复杂的空间调节的证据，这种空间调节似乎是作为缺乏其他细胞周期调节手段的补偿而存在的。我们正在研究这种空间控制是如何产生的，以及细胞周期进程的时间控制是如何与这种额外的控制相结合的。这些研究将提供对调节最基本的生物过程——细胞分裂——的复杂控制的见解。

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.