Abstract
Cells reproduce using two types of divisions: mitosis, which generates two daughter cells each with the same genomic content as the mother cell, and meiosis, which reduces the number of chromosomes of the parent cell by half and gives rise to four gametes. The mechanisms that promote the proper progression of the mitotic and meiotic cycles are highly conserved and controlled. They require the activities of two types of serine-threonine kinases, the cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and the Dbf4-dependent kinase (DDK). CDK and DDK are essential for genome duplication and maintenance in both mitotic and meiotic divisions. In this review, we aim to highlight how these kinases cooperate to orchestrate diverse processes during cellular reproduction, focusing on meiosis-specific adaptions of their regulation and functions in DNA metabolism.
Highlights
The ability to reproduce is a defining criterion for all living organisms
Ime2 has both sequence and functional homology with human CDK2 [63], and some of its key substrates are targets of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs)/Cdc28 [64]; it acts as a companion kinase to CDK in this process. These findings suggest that diversity in CDK and CDK-related activities are essential for cells to progress through meiosis
Together with the higher levels of CDK and dependent kinase (DDK) activities that are crucial for later meiotic steps, these additional controls may participate in orchestrating the program of meiosis
Summary
The ability to reproduce is a defining criterion for all living organisms. In vegetatively growing cells, this is achieved through mitotic divisions, which give rise to two daughter cells with equal genomic contents. DDK is a critical regulator of DNA replication, chromosome segregation, centromeric heterochromatin formation, and genome maintenance [3,8,9,10,11,12] Beyond these functions in proliferating cells, both kinases possess meiosis-specific roles, such as in meiotic recombination and chromosome segregation [13,14,15,16,17,18]. In many of these pathways, consensus phosphorylation sites for both CDK and DDK have been identified in common target substrates [18,19,20,21,22], and studies have shown an important interplay between these kinases in distinct mitotic and meiotic processes. Regulation of the Mitotic Cycle by Quantitative Changes in Cyclin-Dependent Kinase and
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