Diverse actin structures drive the ability of cells to polarize, crawl, communicate and divide. The assembly of many of these actin structures depends on the actin nucleating proteins, the formins. A key question is how formins are positioned and regulated to build actin structures at specific sites on the cell surface at the right times. We study cell polarization and cytokinesis in fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and focus on the regulation and function of formins. Microtubules regulate the formin forSp and actin cable assembly for cell polarization, through microtubule plus end proteins teal p and tea4p. The nucleus regulates the positioning of the cytokinesis formin cdc12p and the actin contractile ring through a nuclear shuttling protein mid1p. In addition to just actin assembly, our preliminary results suggest that formins have key regulatory functions in initiating cell polarization and cytokinesis.
Our specific aims focus on the dissecting that the molecular links and regulatory networks underlying these fundamental processes. Cell division and polarization are universal, cellular processes that serve as the basis for cellular function and proliferation. Mistakes, for instance, in cytokinesis are likely to contribute to the development of the cancer cell. These studies using fission yeast as a model organism are highly relevant towards understanding human cell biology and disease. ? ? ?
| Odermatt, Pascal D; Arjes, Heidi A; Chang, Fred et al. (2018) Who's Your DadA? d-Alanine Levels Regulate Bacterial Stiffness. MBio 9: |
| Rojas, Enrique R; Billings, Gabriel; Odermatt, Pascal D et al. (2018) The outer membrane is an essential load-bearing element in Gram-negative bacteria. Nature 559:617-621 |
| Chang, Fred (2017) Forces that shape fission yeast cells. Mol Biol Cell 28:1819-1824 |
| Atilgan, Erdinc; Magidson, Valentin; Khodjakov, Alexey et al. (2015) Morphogenesis of the Fission Yeast Cell through Cell Wall Expansion. Curr Biol 25:2150-7 |
| Zhou, Zhou; Munteanu, Emilia Laura; He, Jun et al. (2015) The contractile ring coordinates curvature-dependent septum assembly during fission yeast cytokinesis. Mol Biol Cell 26:78-90 |
| Basu, Roshni; Munteanu, Emilia Laura; Chang, Fred (2014) Role of turgor pressure in endocytosis in fission yeast. Mol Biol Cell 25:679-87 |
| Haupt, Armin; Campetelli, Alexis; Bonazzi, Daria et al. (2014) Electrochemical regulation of budding yeast polarity. PLoS Biol 12:e1002029 |
| Chang, Fred; Minc, Nicolas (2014) Electrochemical control of cell and tissue polarity. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol 30:317-36 |
| Chang, Fred; Huang, Kerwyn Casey (2014) How and why cells grow as rods. BMC Biol 12:54 |
| Pan, Kally Z; Saunders, Timothy E; Flor-Parra, Ignacio et al. (2014) Cortical regulation of cell size by a sizer cdr2p. Elife 3:e02040 |
Showing the most recent 10 out of 37 publications
