I started out this blog as a personal blog, and did not differentiate it as a dance blog or a professional blog. I am planning to keep that way; I alternate the topic among Dance, Science and Life events.
This entry is a record of a part of my regular operations as a scientist (junior faculty in a University).
Following is a Journal Club notice for the lab. The readers are assumed to have undergraduate/graduate school-level knowledge for biology (but you don't have to have that to read this blog entry).
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Dear All,
Attached is the Journal Club paper for this Friday (9/5/14).
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Aug 19;111(33):12019-24. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1412901111. Epub 2014 Aug 4.
Disassembly of mitotic checkpoint complexes by the joint action of the AAA-ATPase TRIP13 and p31comet
Esther Eytan, Kexi Wang, Shirly Miniowitz-Shemtov, Danielle Sitry-Shevah, Sharon Kaisari, Tim J. Yen, Song-Tao Liu, and Avram Hershko
Anaphase Promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) is a ubiquitin ligase complex that drives mitosis toward exit. This paper’s last author Dr. Avram Hershko is the Novel Prize winner (2004), Israel-based biochemist and a leader in ubiquitin biology. In 1995 he reported biochemical activity of APC/C for the first time. His report was immediately followed by Dr. Mark Kirschner in Harvard. Their biochemical works provided a perspective to mitotic research at the time and to yeast-based genetical data.
APC/C happens to be the subject of my doctoral thesis. We had yeast mutants that show mitotic arrest, and my task as a graduate student was to figure out the function of the mutated proteins. It turned out the mutants were APC/C mutants, and the mutations disassemble APC/C and inactivate it.
So when I read this paper, it feels somewhat nostalgic and personal. I did meet Dr. Hershko twice in person, in Kyoto and in an ASCB meeting.
This paper is tackling another mystery; how mitotic checkpoint (essentially APC/C inhibitor) is silenced, so APC/C is activated and cells can proceed to mitotic exit.
Research in mitotic regulation started out as research for cdk (cyclin dependent kinase) regulation, then evolving toward the study of cdk regulators such as APC/C and mitotic checkpoint complex. It is good to have this historical perspective to understand this research field.
Thanks.
Hiroshi
