The DUET gene is necessary for chromosome organization and progression during male meiosis in Arabidopsis and encodes a PHD finger protein

Progression through the meiotic cell cycle is an essential part of the developmental program of sporogenesis in plants. The duet mutant of Arabidopsis was identified as a male sterile mutant that lacked pollen and underwent an aberrant male meiosis. Male meiocyte division resulted in the formation of two cells instead of a normal tetrad. In wild type, male meiosis extends across two successive bud positions in an inflorescence whereas in duet, meiotic stages covered three to five bud positions indicating defective progression. Normal microspores were absent in the mutant and the products of the aberrant meiosis were uni- to tri-nucleate cells that later degenerated, resulting in anthers containing largely empty locules. Defects in male meiotic chromosome organization were observed starting from diplotene and extending to subsequent stages of meiosis. There was an accumulation of meiotic structures at metaphase 1, suggesting an arrest in cell cycle progression. Double mutant analysis revealed interaction with dyad, a mutation causing chromosome cohesion during female meiosis. Cloning and molecular analysis of DUET indicated that it potentially encodes a PHD-finger protein and shows specific expression in male meiocytes. Taken together these data suggest that DUET is required for male meiotic chromosome organization and progression.     

TDM1 Regulation Determines the Number of Meiotic Divisions

Cell cycle control must be modified at meiosis to allow two divisions to follow a single round of DNA replication, resulting in ploidy reduction. The mechanisms that ensure meiosis termination at the end of the second and not at the end of first division are poorly understood. We show here that Arabidopsis thaliana TDM1, which has been previously shown to be essential for meiotic termination, interacts directly with the Anaphase-Promoting Complex. Further, mutations in TDM1 in a conserved putative Cyclin-Dependant Kinase (CDK) phosphorylation site (T16-P17) dominantly provoked premature meiosis termination after the first division, and the production of diploid spores and gametes. The CDKA;1-CYCA1.2/TAM complex, which is required to prevent premature meiotic exit, phosphorylated TDM1 at T16 in vitro. Finally, while CYCA1;2/TAM was previously shown to be expressed only at meiosis I, TDM1 is present throughout meiosis. These data, together with epistasis analysis, lead us to propose that TDM1 is an APC/C component whose function is to ensure meiosis termination at the end of meiosis II, and whose activity is inhibited at meiosis I by CDKA;1-TAM-mediated phosphorylation to prevent premature meiotic exit. This provides a molecular mechanism for the differential decision of performing an additional round of division, or not, at the end of meiosis I and II, respectively.     

OSD1 Promotes Meiotic Progression via APC/C Inhibition and Forms a Regulatory Network with TDM and CYCA1;2/TAM

Cell cycle control is modified at meiosis compared to mitosis, because two divisions follow a single DNA replication event. Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) promote progression through both meiosis and mitosis, and a central regulator of their activity is the APC/C (Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome) that is especially required for exit from mitosis. We have shown previously that OSD1 is involved in entry into both meiosis I and meiosis II in Arabidopsis thaliana; however, the molecular mechanism by which OSD1 controls these transitions has remained unclear. Here we show that OSD1 promotes meiotic progression through APC/C inhibition. Next, we explored the functional relationships between OSD1 and the genes known to control meiotic cell cycle transitions in Arabidopsis. Like osd1, cyca1;2/tam mutation leads to a premature exit from meiosis after the first division, while tdm mutants perform an aberrant third meiotic division after normal meiosis I and II. Remarkably, while tdm is epistatic to tam, osd1 is epistatic to tdm. We further show that the expression of a non-destructible CYCA1;2/TAM provokes, like tdm, the entry into a third meiotic division. Finally, we show that CYCA1;2/TAM forms an active complex with CDKA;1 that can phosphorylate OSD1 in vitro. We thus propose that a functional network composed of OSD1, CYCA1;2/TAM, and TDM controls three key steps of meiotic progression, in which OSD1 is a meiotic APC/C inhibitor.     

The CYCLIN-A CYCA1;2/TAM Is Required for the Meiosis I to Meiosis II Transition and Cooperates with OSD1 for the Prophase to First Meiotic Division Transition

Meiosis halves the chromosome number because its two divisions follow a single round of DNA replication. This process involves two cell transitions, the transition from prophase to the first meiotic division (meiosis I) and the unique meiosis I to meiosis II transition. We show here that the A-type cyclin CYCA1;2/TAM plays a major role in both transitions in Arabidopsis. A series of tam mutants failed to enter meiosis II and thus produced diploid spores and functional diploid gametes. These diploid gametes had a recombined genotype produced through the single meiosis I division. In addition, by combining the tam-2 mutation with AtSpo11-1 and Atrec8, we obtained plants producing diploid gametes through a mitotic-like division that were genetically identical to their parents. Thus tam alleles displayed phenotypes very similar to that of the previously described osd1 mutant. Combining tam and osd1 mutations leads to a failure in the prophase to meiosis I transition during male meiosis and to the production of tetraploid spores and gametes. This suggests that TAM and OSD1 are involved in the control of both meiotic transitions.     

Proper Microtubule Structure Is Vital for Timely Progression through Meiosis in Fission Yeast

Cells of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe normally reproduce by mitotic division in the haploid state. When subjected to nutrient starvation, two haploid cells fuse and undergo karyogamy, forming a diploid cell that initiates meiosis to form four haploid spores. Here, we show that deletion of the mal3 gene, which encodes a homolog of microtubule regulator EB1, produces aberrant asci carrying more than four spores. The mal3 deletion mutant cells have a disordered cytoplasmic microtubule structure during karyogamy and initiate meiosis before completion of karyogamy, resulting in twin haploid meiosis in the zygote. Treatment with anti-microtubule drugs mimics this phenotype. Mutants defective in karyogamy or mutants prone to initiate haploid meiosis exaggerate the phenotype of the mal3 deletion mutant. Our results indicate that proper microtubule structure is required for ordered progression through the meiotic cycle. Furthermore, the results of our study suggest that fission yeast do not monitor ploidy during meiosis.     

Polo-like kinase-1 is a pivotal regulator of microtubule assembly during mouse oocyte meiotic maturation,fertilization, and early embryonic mitosis

Polo-like kinases (Plks) are a family of serine/threonine protein kinases that have been activated through phosphorylation. The activity of these kinases has been shown to be required for regulating multiple stages of mitotic progression in somatic cells. In this experiment, the changes in Plk1 expression were detected in mouse oocytes through Western blotting. The subcellular localization of Plk1 during oocyte meiotic maturation, fertilization, and early cleavage as well as after antibody microinjection or microtubule assembly disturbance was studied by confocal microscopy. The quantity of Plk1 protein remained stable during meiotic maturation and decreased gradually after fertilization. Plk1 was localized to the spindle poles of both meiotic and mitotic spindles at the early M phase and then translocated to the middle region. At anaphase and telophase, Plk1 was concentrated at the midbody of cytoplasmic cleavages. Plk1 was concentrated between the male and female pronuclei after fertilization. Plk1 disappeared at the spindle region when microtubule formation was inhibited by colchicine or staurosporine, while it was concentrated as several dots in the cytoplasm after taxol treatment. Plk1 antibody injection decreased the germinal vesicle breakdown rate and distorted MI spindle organization. Our results indicate that Plk1 is a pivotal regulator of microtubule organization during mouse oocyte meiosis, fertilization, and cleavage and that its functions may be regulated by other kinases, such as staurosporine-sensitive kinases.     

The CPEB Protein Orb2 Has Multiple Functions during Spermatogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster

Cytoplasmic Polyadenylation Element Binding (CPEB) proteins are translational regulators that can either activate or repress translation depending on the target mRNA and the specific biological context. There are two CPEB subfamilies and most animals have one or more genes from each. Drosophila has a single CPEB gene, orb and orb2, from each subfamily. orb expression is only detected at high levels in the germline and has critical functions in oogenesis but not spermatogenesis. By contrast, orb2 is broadly expressed in the soma; and previous studies have revealed important functions in asymmetric cell division, viability, motor function, learning, and memory. Here we show that orb2 is also expressed in the adult male germline and that it has essential functions in programming the progression of spermatogenesis from meiosis through differentiation. Like the translational regulators boule (bol) and off-schedule (ofs), orb2 is required for meiosis and orb2 mutant spermatocytes undergo a prolonged arrest during the meiotic G2-M transition. However, orb2 differs from boule and off-schedule in that this arrest occurs at a later step in meiotic progression after the synthesis of the meiotic regulator twine. orb2 is also required for the orderly differentiation of the spermatids after meiosis is complete. The differentiation defects in orb2 mutants include abnormal elongation of the spermatid flagellar axonemes, a failure in individualization and improper post-meiotic gene expression. Amongst the orb2 differentiation targets are orb and two other mRNAs, which are transcribed post-meiotically and localized to the tip of the flagellar axonemes. Additionally, analysis of a partial loss of function orb2 mutant suggests that the orb2 differentiation phenotypes are independent of the earlier arrest in meiosis.