Is cohesin required for spindle-pole-body/centrosome cohesion?

Abstract

Centrosomes are microtubule-organizing centers that nucleate spindle microtubules during cell division. In budding yeast, the centrosome, often referred to as the spindle pole body, shares structural components with the centriole, the central core of the animal centrosome. The parental centrosome is duplicated when DNA replication takes place. Like sister chromatids tethered together by cohesin, duplicated centrosomes are linked and then separate to form the bipolar spindle necessary for chromosome segregation. Recent studies have shown that cohesin is also localized to the animal centrosome and is perhaps directly involved in engaging paired centrioles. Here we discuss the potential role of cohesin in mediating spindle-pole-body cohesion in the context of yeast meiosis. We propose that the coordination of chromosome segregation with centrosome cohesion and duplication is mediated by the antagonistic interaction between the Aurora kinase and the Polo kinase and that the role of cohesin in centrosome regulation appears to be indirect in budding yeast.

Keywords: :

• centrosome
• cohesin
• meiosis
• SPB cohesion
• spindle pole body (SPB)

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

We thank K. Shirk for providing technical assistance. This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation [MCB-0718384].