The role of cyclin C in cell cycle regulation is currently poorly characterized. Cyclin C was isolated as a gene which can rescue G1 cyclin nulls in yeast indicating it can complement G1 cyclin function. Cyclin C interacts with cdk8 and by homology with cdc8 this suggests it may regulate RNA polymerase activity. However, this function is inconsistent with the rescue results which indicate a more direct role of cyclin C in cell cycle regulation. The cyclin C gene in humans maps to chromosome position in the 6q 21 region. Importantly, Dr. Lahti has shown that in 80% of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemias cyclin C is deleted suggesting a causal relationship between cyclin C deletion and transformation in these tumors.
Ramos, Belen; Lahti, Jill M; Claro, Enrique et al. (2003) Prevalence of necrosis in C2-ceramide-induced cytotoxicity in NB16 neuroblastoma cells. Mol Pharmacol 64:502-11 |
Hsu, Li-Chung; Liu, Shu; Abedinpour, Ferishteh et al. (2003) The murine G+C-rich promoter binding protein mGPBP is required for promoter-specific transcription. Mol Cell Biol 23:8773-85 |
Trembley, Janeen H; Hu, Dongli; Hsu, Li-Chung et al. (2002) PITSLRE p110 protein kinases associate with transcription complexes and affect their activity. J Biol Chem 277:2589-96 |
Lahti, J M (1999) Use of gene knockouts in cultured cells to study apoptosis. Methods 17:305-12 |