Cdc14p turns MEN on and off

The later stages of mitosis are complex. It is therefore inevitable that researchers working on the mitotic exit network (MEN) group of proteins would first keep things simple, and only later elaborate on their earlier, incomplete models. Two recent papers by Pereira et al. (page 367) and Stegmeier et al. (Stegmeier, F., R. Visintin, and A. Amon. 2002. Cell. 108:207–220) constitute an important part of this latter elaboration process.

Both papers focus on the budding yeast Cdc14p phosphatase, which is released from the nucleolus so that it can kick the cell out of mitosis and into G1. (It does so by triggering the degradation of cyclin, and stabilizing the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor Sic1.) Previous work had stressed the action of the MEN, a network of regulatory proteins,...