Friday, September 29, 2006
How nature tinkers with the cellular clock
The life of a cell is all about growing and dividing at the right time. That is why the cell cycle is one of the most tightly regulated cellular processes. A control system with several layers adjusts when key components of the cell cycle machinery are produced, activated and degraded to make sure that the schedule is kept. These layers of control work differently and are usually studied separately, but researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have now discovered that they change in a highly coordinated fashion during evolution.
The study, which will be published in this week's online issue of the journal Nature, also reveals that although most components of the cell cycle have been conserved over one billion years, the temporal regulation of this process has evolved remarkably fast.
The cell cycle is so fundamental for a cell that its machinery has been almost entirely conserved through evolution.
Continued at "How nature tinkers with the cellular clock"
-------
Based on the journal Nature paper "Co-evolution of transcriptional and post-translational cell-cycle regulation" (Abstract)
Technorati: life, cell, time, cycle, regulated, cellular, control, system, key, components, machinery, schedule, work, european, molecular, biology, laboratory, embl, technical, university, denmark, dtu, evolution, study, journal, nature, conserved, temporal, regulation, process, evolved, nature, clock, co-evolution
Add to: CiteUlike | Connotea | Del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Newsvine | Reddit | Yahoo
