A one-cell embryo with too little cki-2 forms a tetrapolar spindle (red) due to extra centrosomes (green).

Like rowdy bar patrons, centrosomes must be booted from the cell during oogenesis. To achieve this, a cell cycle regulator moonlights as a bouncer for centrosomes, as shown by Kim and Roy on page 751.

In most organisms, centrosomes are removed from the developing egg to prevent the fertilized zygote from inheriting redundant sets from both the egg and the sperm. But too many of these microtubule organizers is just what Kim and Roy found upon reducing levels of cki-2, a negative regulator of cell cycle progression.

The affected zygotes arrested at the one-cell stage with an extra pair of centrosomes and often multiple nuclei. Working backwards from there, the group found that the extra centrosomes came from the egg.

Like the paternal centrosomes, the extra...

The Rockefeller University Press
2006
The Rockefeller University Press
2006
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