Cell division articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    An exceptionally large-scale project aimed at assigning function to all protein-coding genes in the human genome is reported on page 721 by Neumann et al.1. Here are two complementary views on the experimental design and analysis, and on how useful the findings will be to cell biologists.

    • Jason R. Swedlow
    • , Cecilia Cotta-Ramusino
    •  & Stephen J. Elledge
  • Letter |

    The existence of all-female species of whiptail lizard, formed as a hybrid between sexual species, has been known since 1962; however, how the meiotic program is altered to produce diploid eggs while maintaining heterozygosity has remained unclear. Here it is shown in parthenogenetic species that meiosis initiates with twice the number of chromosomes compared to sexual species, and that pairing and recombination takes place between genetically identical sister chromosomes instead of between homologues.

    • Aracely A. Lutes
    • , William B. Neaves
    •  & Peter Baumann
  • Letter |

    Kinase regulatory pathways are used in eukaryotic DNA replication to facilitate coordination with other processes during cell division cycles and response to environmental cues. The Dbf4–Cdc7 kinase (DDK) is one of at least two cell-cycle-regulated protein kinase systems essential for initiation of DNA replication. DDK is now shown to relieve the inhibitory activity of the amino-terminal domain of the replicative helicase Mcm4, thus promoting S phase.

    • Yi-Jun Sheu
    •  & Bruce Stillman