Spatial and temporal control of the meiotic cell cycle

这项研究计划旨在了解细胞分裂这一最基本的生物过程。细胞分裂或细胞周期的研究是研究细胞如何通过复制它们的DNA和细胞内容，并将它们分离成两个相等的子细胞来增加它们的数量。在像人类或果蝇这样的多细胞生物中，发育过程中的细胞分裂产生了组成成虫的数百万个细胞。基本的细胞周期由由大量蛋白质共同作用的几层调控组成，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的调节模式是相似的。然而，在复杂生物体的发育过程中，并不是所有的细胞周期都是相同的，许多细胞周期实际上与标准的细胞周期有很大的不同。果蝇一直是研究相对复杂的过程的理想模式生物，而这些过程是其他高等生物难以研究的。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专门的细胞周期--雌性减数分裂细胞周期--中控制的。雌性减数分裂是卵子形成过程中发生的一系列细胞分裂。雌性减数分裂的细胞周期是独一无二的，因为它们缺乏典型细胞周期所使用的许多调节机制，而是依赖于一些专门的细胞周期调节器和标准调节器的重组。我们使用遗传学和生物化学的技术来鉴定雌性减数分裂的独特调节因素。我们对雌性减数分裂特有的细胞周期调节的研究提供了细胞周期的复杂空间调节的证据，这似乎是对缺乏其他细胞周期调节手段的补偿。我们正在研究这种空间控制是如何实现的，以及细胞周期进程的时间控制如何与这种额外的控制水平相结合。这些研究将提供对调控最基本的生物过程--细胞分裂--的复杂控制的洞察。

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.