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Updated: Jul 13, 2026
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Manipulation and Analysis of Cell Cycle-Dependent Processes in Budding Yeast
Published on: September 26, 2025
Evolution of cell cycle control: same molecular machines, different regulation.
Ulrik de Lichtenberg1, Thomas Skøt Jensen, Søren Brunak
1Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
Cell Cycle (Georgetown, Tex.)
|August 3, 2007
Summary
Cell cycle regulation is conserved in eukaryotes, but specific gene and protein controls evolve flexibly. Independent regulatory layers coevolve, allowing diverse solutions for essential molecular machines.
Area of Science:
- * Molecular Biology
- * Evolutionary Biology
- * Genomics
Background:
- * Core cell cycle components are functionally and structurally conserved across eukaryotes.
- * Cell cycle protein complexes are regulated by diverse mechanisms like transcriptional control, phosphorylation, and degradation.
- * Understanding how these regulatory layers interact and evolve is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- * To investigate how multiple regulatory layers control cell cycle complexes.
- * To analyze the evolutionary patterns of cell cycle regulation.
- * To explore the flexibility and modularity in cellular systems.
Main Methods:
- * Integrative analyses of various genome-scale datasets.
- * Comparative genomics and evolutionary analysis of regulatory mechanisms.
- * Examination of transcriptional and post-translational regulation.
Main Results:
- * Surprisingly poor conservation observed in transcriptional and post-translational regulation of individual genes/proteins.
- * Changes in one regulatory layer are often mirrored by changes in other layers.
- * Independent regulatory layers demonstrate co-evolutionary patterns.
Conclusions:
- * The cell cycle exhibits modular organization with inherent flexibility.
- * Evolution utilizes diverse strategies to assemble essential molecular machines.
- * Co-evolution of regulatory layers ensures functional robustness despite poor conservation of individual components.
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