pavarotti encodes a kinesin-like protein required to organize the central spindle and contractile ring for cytokinesis
- Cancer Research Campaign (CRC) Laboratories, Cell Cycle Genetics Research Group, Department of Anatomy and Physiology, Medical Sciences Institute, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, UK; 1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Houston, Texas 77030 USA
Abstract
Mutations in the Drosophila gene pavarotti result in the formation of abnormally large cells in the embryonic nervous system. In mitotic cycle 16, cells of pav mutant embryos undergo normal anaphase but then develop an abnormal telophase spindle and fail to undertake cytokinesis. We show that the septin Peanut, actin, and the actin-associated protein Anillin, do not become correctly localized in pav mutants. pav encodes a kinesin-like protein, PAV–KLP, related to the mammalian MKLP-1. In cellularized embryos, the protein is localized to centrosomes early in mitosis, and to the midbody region of the spindle in late anaphase and telophase. We show that Polo kinase associates with PAV–KLP with which it shows an overlapping pattern of subcellular localization during the mitotic cycle and this distribution is disrupted in pavmutants. We suggest that PAV–KLP is required both to establish the structure of the telophase spindle to provide a framework for the assembly of the contractile ring, and to mobilize mitotic regulator proteins.
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Footnotes
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↵2 Present address: Department of Genetics, Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel.
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↵3 Corresponding author.
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E-MAIL d.m.glover{at}dundee.ac.uk; FAX 44(0) 1382 344213.
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- Received November 21, 1997.
- Accepted March 11, 1998.
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
