Skip to main content
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Plus
  • Other GSA Resources
    • Genetics Society of America
    • G3: Genes | Genomes | Genetics
    • Genes to Genomes: The GSA Blog
    • GSA Conferences
    • GeneticsCareers.org
  • Log in
Genetics

Main menu

  • HOME
  • ISSUES
    • Current Issue
    • Early Online
    • Archive
  • ABOUT
    • About the journal
    • Why publish with us?
    • Editorial board
    • Contact us
  • SERIES
    • Centennial
    • Genetics of Immunity
    • Genetics of Sex
    • Genomic Selection
    • Multiparental Populations
    • FlyBook
    • WormBook
    • YeastBook
  • ARTICLE TYPES
    • About Article Types
    • Commentaries
    • Editorials
    • GSA Honors and Awards
    • Methods, Technology & Resources
    • Perspectives
    • Primers
    • Reviews
    • Toolbox Reviews
  • PUBLISH & REVIEW
    • Scope & publication policies
    • Submission & review process
    • Article types
    • Prepare your manuscript
    • Submit your manuscript
    • After acceptance
    • Guidelines for reviewers
  • SUBSCRIBE
    • Why subscribe?
    • For institutions
    • For individuals
    • Email alerts
    • RSS feeds
  • Other GSA Resources
    • Genetics Society of America
    • G3: Genes | Genomes | Genetics
    • Genes to Genomes: The GSA Blog
    • GSA Conferences
    • GeneticsCareers.org

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
Genetics

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • ISSUES
    • Current Issue
    • Early Online
    • Archive
  • ABOUT
    • About the journal
    • Why publish with us?
    • Editorial board
    • Contact us
  • SERIES
    • Centennial
    • Genetics of Immunity
    • Genetics of Sex
    • Genomic Selection
    • Multiparental Populations
    • FlyBook
    • WormBook
    • YeastBook
  • ARTICLE TYPES
    • About Article Types
    • Commentaries
    • Editorials
    • GSA Honors and Awards
    • Methods, Technology & Resources
    • Perspectives
    • Primers
    • Reviews
    • Toolbox Reviews
  • PUBLISH & REVIEW
    • Scope & publication policies
    • Submission & review process
    • Article types
    • Prepare your manuscript
    • Submit your manuscript
    • After acceptance
    • Guidelines for reviewers
  • SUBSCRIBE
    • Why subscribe?
    • For institutions
    • For individuals
    • Email alerts
    • RSS feeds
Previous ArticleNext Article

Paul Nurse and Pierre Thuriaux on wee Mutants and Cell Cycle Control

Andrew Murray
Genetics December 1, 2016 vol. 204 no. 4 1325-1326; https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.116.197186
Andrew Murray
Molecular and Cellular Biology and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: amurray@mcb.harvard.edu
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
Loading
Figure1
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

In 1974, Paul Nurse was searching for fission yeast mutants that were larger than normal when he instead found one that was smaller. This unexpected wee mutant (named for its discovery in Scotland) led Nurse to identify a critical regulator of the cell cycle, and helped him win a Nobel prize.

Starting his postdoc with Murdoch Mitchison in Edinburgh, Nurse was inspired to investigate the cell division cycle by Lee Hartwell’s work in isolating and analyzing budding yeast mutants arrested at specific points in the cycle (Hartwell et al. 1973). Nurse looked for similar mutants in fission yeast by isolating cells that continued to grow without dividing, which made them unusually large. Nurse unexpectedly discovered a clump of much smaller cells that did not arrest but instead divided early—before the cells had reached their wild-type size (Nurse 1975). Nurse realized that mutations of this sort, which accelerated the cell cycle, held the key to understanding how cells coordinated their growth and division to maintain a constant average size. And, having made this connection, the 1980 GENETICS paper set out to deliberately look for more wee mutants. Nurse and Thuriaux isolated 50 new mutants with this phenotype and found that all but one lay in the previously identified wee1 gene. But the exception was informative: it was a dominant mutation in the cdc2 gene. Previously identified, recessive, mutations in this gene kept cells from dividing. This meant different mutations in the same gene could either prevent or accelerate division, suggesting that Cdc2 was a critical regulator of cell division. Genetic analysis suggested a simple model: the activity of Cdc2 was required to enter mitosis, and Wee1 was a dosage-dependent inhibitor of Cdc2 activity. Many years of subsequent work showed that this model was correct, and that the presence and activity of Cdc2 and Wee1 were conserved throughout eukaryotes. For these important insights, Nurse shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology with Lee Hartwell and Tim Hunt.

Footnotes

  • Communicating editor: C. Gelling

  • ORIGINAL CITATION

  • Regulatory Genes Controlling Mitosis in the Fission Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

  • Paul Nurse and Pierre Thuriaux

  • GENETICS November 1, 1980 96: 627–637

  • Photo of Paul Nurse (left) and Pierre Thuriaux (right) courtesy of Paul Nurse.

  • Copyright © 2016 by the Genetics Society of America

Literature Cited

  1. ↵
    1. Hartwell L. H.,
    2. Mortimer R. K.,
    3. Culotti J.,
    4. Culotti M.
    , 1973 Genetic control of the cell division cycle in yeast: V. genetic analysis of cdc mutants. Genetics 74: 267–286.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  2. ↵
    1. Nurse P.
    , 1975 Genetic control of cell size at cell division in yeast. Nature 256: 547–551.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

Further reading in GENETICS

    1. Fantes P. A.,
    2. Hoffman C. S.
    , 2016 A brief history of Schizosaccharomyces pombe research: a perspective over the past 70 years. Genetics 203: 621–629.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Hoffman C. S.,
    2. Wood V.,
    3. Fantes P. A.
    , 2015 An ancient yeast for young geneticists: a primer on the Schizosaccharomyces pombe model system. Genetics 201: 403–423.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text

Other GENETICS articles by P. Nurse and P. Thuriaux

    1. Feilotter H.,
    2. Nurse P.,
    3. Young P. G.
    , 1991 Genetic and molecular analysis of cdr1/nim1 in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Genetics 127: 309–318.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Gudenus R.,
    2. Mariotte S.,
    3. Moenne A.,
    4. Ruet A.,
    5. Memet S.,
    6. et al.
    , 1988 Conditional mutants of RPC160, the gene encoding the largest subunit of RNA polymerase C in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genetics 119: 517–526.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Kalogeropoulos A.,
    2. Thuriaux P.
    , 1985 Gene conversion at the gray locus of Sordaria fimicola: fit of the experimental data to a hybrid DNA model of recombination. Genetics 109: 599–610.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Kohli J.,
    2. Hottinger H.,
    3. Munz P.,
    4. Strauss A.,
    5. Thuriaux P.
    , 1977 Genetic mapping in Schizosaccharomyces pombe by mitotic and meiotic analysis and induced haploidization. Genetics 87: 471–489.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
Previous ArticleNext Article
Back to top

PUBLICATION INFORMATION

Volume 204 Issue 4, December 2016

Genetics: 204 (4)

ARTICLE CLASSIFICATION

Centennial
Classics
View this article with LENS
Email

Thank you for sharing this Genetics article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Paul Nurse and Pierre Thuriaux on wee Mutants and Cell Cycle Control
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Genetics
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Genetics.
Print
Alerts
Enter your email below to set up alert notifications for new article, or to manage your existing alerts.
SIGN UP OR SIGN IN WITH YOUR EMAIL
View PDF
Share

Paul Nurse and Pierre Thuriaux on wee Mutants and Cell Cycle Control

Andrew Murray
Genetics December 1, 2016 vol. 204 no. 4 1325-1326; https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.116.197186
Andrew Murray
Molecular and Cellular Biology and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: amurray@mcb.harvard.edu
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation

Paul Nurse and Pierre Thuriaux on wee Mutants and Cell Cycle Control

Andrew Murray
Genetics December 1, 2016 vol. 204 no. 4 1325-1326; https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.116.197186
Andrew Murray
Molecular and Cellular Biology and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: amurray@mcb.harvard.edu

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Related Articles

Cited By

More in this TOC Section

Centennial

  • The Sustained Impact of Model Organisms—in Genetics and Epigenetics
  • Edward East on the Mendelian Basis of Quantitative Trait Variation
Show more 3

Classics

  • Edward East on the Mendelian Basis of Quantitative Trait Variation
  • Charlesworth et al. on Background Selection and Neutral Diversity
Show more 3
  • Top
  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • Literature Cited
    • Further reading in GENETICS
    • Other GENETICS articles by P. Nurse and P. Thuriaux
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics

GSA

The Genetics Society of America (GSA), founded in 1931, is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers and educators in the field of genetics. Our members work to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level.

Online ISSN: 1943-2631

  • For Authors
  • For Reviewers
  • For Subscribers
  • Submit a Manuscript
  • Editorial Board
  • Press Releases

SPPA Logo

GET CONNECTED

RSS  Subscribe with RSS.

email  Subscribe via email. Sign up to receive alert notifications of new articles.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Plus

Copyright © 2018 by the Genetics Society of America

  • About GENETICS
  • Terms of use
  • Advertising
  • Permissions
  • Contact us
  • International access