Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on February 1, 2008.

Genetics, Vol. 178, 1311-1325, March 2008, Copyright © 2008
doi:10.1534/genetics.107.082511

Drosophila sticky/citron kinase Is a Regulator of Cell-Cycle Progression, Genetically Interacts With Argonaute 1 and Modulates Epigenetic Gene Silencing

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721

1 Corresponding author: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0106.
E-mail: gbosco{at}email.arizona.edu

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 regulate both actin–myosin-mediated cytokinesis and epigenetic gene silencing, possibly linking cell-cycle progression to heterochromatin assembly and inheritance of gene expression states.




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