The Aurora Kinase in Trypanosoma brucei plays distinctive roles in metaphase-anaphase transition and cytokinetic initiation.

ABSTRACT: Aurora B kinase is an essential regulator of chromosome segregation with the action well characterized in eukaryotes. It is also implicated in cytokinesis, but the detailed mechanism remains less clear, partly due to the difficulty in separating the latter from the former function in a growing cell. A chemical genetic approach with an inhibitor of the enzyme added to a synchronized cell population at different stages of the cell cycle would probably solve this problem. In the deeply branched parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma brucei, an Aurora B homolog, TbAUK1, was found to control both chromosome segregation and cytokinetic initiation by evidence from RNAi and dominant negative mutation. To clearly separate these two functions, VX-680, an inhibitor of TbAUK1, was added to a synchronized T.

SUBMITTER: Li Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2734176 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature