Caenorhabditis elegans Aurora A kinase AIR-1 is required for postembryonic cell divisions and germline development

Many kinases are required for progression through the eukaryotic cell cycle. The Aurora kinases comprise a highly conserved family of serine/threonine kinases that have been implicated in chromosome segregation and cytokinesis in several organisms. We have isolated a sterile Caenorhabditis elegans mutant in which the majority of the locus encoding the Aurora A kinase air-1 has been deleted. Complementation tests with previously isolated sterile mutations in the air-1 genetic interval demonstrate that the air-1 and let-412 loci are identical. Previous analysis of AIR-1 function by RNA-mediated interference (RNAi) has shown that AIR-1 is required for embryonic survival. The characterization of the three sterile air-1 mutant alleles described here extends these studies by revealing an allelic series that differentially affects postembryonic cell divisions and germline development.