Shaping meiotic chromosomes with SUMO: a feedback loop controls the assembly of the synaptonemal complex in budding yeast
Authors:Hideo Tsubouchi1, Bilge Argunhan1 and Tomomi Tsubouchi2
doi: 10.15698/mic2016.03.486
Volume 3, pp. 126 to 128, published 19/02/2016.
1 Genome Damage and Stability Centre, Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN19RQ, UK.
2 National Institute for Basic Biology, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585, Japan.
Keywords:
budding yeast, chromosome, homologous recombination, meiosis, SUMO, SUMOylation, the synaptonemal complex.
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare that no competing interest exists.
Please cite this article as:
Hideo Tsubouchi, Bilge Argunhan and Tomomi Tsubouchi (2016). Shaping meiotic chromosomes with SUMO: a feedback loop controls the assembly of the synaptonemal complex in budding yeast. Microbial Cell 3(3):126-128. doi: 10.15698/mic2016.03.486
© 2016 Tsubouchi et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
The synaptonemal complex (SC) is a meiosis-specific chromosomal structure in which homologous chromosomes are intimately linked through arrays of specialized proteins called transverse filaments (TF). Widely conserved in eukaryote meiosis, the SC forms during prophase I and is essential for accurate segregation of homologous chromosomes at meiosis I. However, the basic mechanism overlooking formation and regulation of the SC has been poorly understood. By using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we recently showed that SC formation is controlled through the attachment of multiple molecules of small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) to a regulator of TF assembly. Intriguingly, this SUMOylation is activated by TF, implicating the involvement of a positive feedback loop in the control of SC assembly. We discuss the implication of this finding and possible involvement of a similar mechanism in regulating other processes.