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Chromosome biology

Sisters find a slick way to stick

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 1, page 87 (2000)Cite this article

Clues to what's going on in meiosis can be gleaned from events during mitosis. Sister chromatids are initially bound along their length by a physical tie — the so-called cohesin complex. Consisting of four subunits, Smc1p , Smc3p, Scc1p and Scc3p, cohesin establishes this connection and maintains it until anaphase. At this point, sister-chromatid cohesion is lost — first along the arms and then at the centromeres — by proteolytic cleavage of the Scc1p subunit. This cohesion must be maintained during meiosis I and, in addition, the kinetochores (multiprotein complexes at the centromeres) must be regulated such that both sisters are pulled to one pole rather than being dragged away from each other.

Dawson and colleagues realized that yeast with a mutation in the SLK19 (synthetic lethal kar3) gene show a defect in meiosis consistent with a failure in the control of sister-chromatid behaviour: rather than forming tetrads containing four haploid spores, these mutants form dyads with two diploid spores. The authors found that although slk19 mutants enter meiosis I efficiently, the sister chromatids then separate to opposite poles of the cell. Moreover, most of the mutants do not go through a second meiotic division — that's why they form dyads. This could be due to a breakdown of sister-chromatid cohesion, to impaired kinetochore function, or to both.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Kamieniecki, R. J., Shanks, R. M. Q. & Dawson, D. S. Slk19p is necessary to prevent separation of sister chromatids. Curr. Biol. 10, 1182–1190 (2000) [ Contents page]

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FURTHER READING

  1. Nasmyth, K., Peters, J.-M. & Uhlmann, F. Splitting the chromosome: cutting the ties that bind sister chromatids. Science 288, 1379–1384 (2000) [ PubMed]

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Authors
  1. Alison Mitchell
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Mitchell, A. Sisters find a slick way to stick. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 1, 87 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35040030

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