Abstract
THE wee1+ gene is a mitotic inhibitor controlling the G2 to M transition of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe1 and encodes a protein kinase with both serine- and tyrosine-phosphorylating activities2. We have cloned a human gene (WEElHu) similar to weel+ by transcomplementation of a yeast mutant3,4. WEElHu encodes a protein homologous to the S. pombe weel+ and mik1+ (a functionally redundant sibling of weel+)5 kinases and effectively rescues a wee1 mutation. We report here that overexpression of WEE1Hu in fission yeast generates very elongated cells as a result of inhibition of the G2-M transition in the cell cycle. In addition, we detected a 3-kilobase-long WEE1Hu messenger RNA in all the human cell lines we examined. We conclude that a wee1+-like gene exists and is expressed in human cells.
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Igarashi, M., Nagata, A., Jinno, S. et al. Wee1+-like gene in human cells. Nature 353, 80–83 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1038/353080a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/353080a0
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