Drosophila sticky/citron kinase is a regulator of cell cycle progression, genetically interacts with Argonaute 1 and modulates epigenetic gene silencing

The sticky/citron kinase protein is a conserved regulator of cell cycle progression from invertebrates to humans. While this kinase is essential for completion of cytokinesis, sticky/citron kinase phenotypes disrupting neurogenesis and cell differentiation suggest additional non-cell cycle functions. However, it is not known whether these phenotypes are an indirect consequence of sticky mutant cell cycle defects or whether they define a novel function for this kinase. We have isolated a temperature sensitive allele of the Drosophila sticky gene and we show that sticky/citron kinase is required for histone H3-K9 methylation, HP1 localization and heterochromatin mediated gene silencing. Sticky genetically interacts with Argonaute 1 and sticky mutants exhibit context dependent Su(var) and E(var) activity. These observations indicate that sticky/citron kinase functions to both regulate actin-myosin mediated cytokinesis as well as epigenetic gene silencing, possibly linking cell cycle progression to heterochromatin assembly and inheritance of gene expression states.

Key Words: Drosophila, citron kinase, follicle cells, heterochromatin, sticky

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. J. Texada, R. A. Simonette, C. B. Johnson, W. J. Deery, and K. M. Beckingham yuri gagarin is required for actin, tubulin and basal body functions in Drosophila spermatogenesis J. Cell Sci., June 1, 2008; 121(11): 1926 - 1936. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Online ISS 1091-6490
Copyright 2008 by the Genetics Society of America
phone: 412-268-1812   fax: 412-268-1813   email: genetics-gsa{at}andrew.cmu.edu