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Fission yeast Bub1 is essential in setting up the meiotic pattern of chromosome segregation

Abstract

In meiosis, sister-chromatids move to the same spindle pole during the first division (MI) and to opposite poles during the second division (MII). This requires that MI sister kinetochores are co-orientated and form an apparent single functional unit that only interacts with microtubules from one pole, and that sister-chromatids remain associated through their centromeres until anaphase II. Here we investigate the function of Bub1 and Mad2, which are components of the mitotic-spindle checkpoint, on chromosome segregation during meiosis. Both proteins are required to prevent the occurrence of non-disjunction events in MI, which is consistent with recent findings that components of the mitotic-spindle checkpoint also operate during meiosis1. However, Bub1 has several functions that are not shared with Mad2. When the bub1 gene is deleted, sister chromatids often move to opposite spindle poles during MI, indicating that sister kinetochores are disunited. Furthermore, the cohesin Rec8 is never retained at centromeres at anaphase I and sister-chromatid cohesion is lost. Our results show that Bub1, besides its functions in monitoring chromosome attachment, is essential for two other significant aspects of MI — unification of sister kinetochores and retention of centromeric cohesion.

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Figure 1: Bub1 is associated with centromeres throughout meiosis.
Figure 2: Chromosome-segregation defects in meiotic cells lacking Bub1 or Mad2.
Figure 3: Retention of Rec8 at centromeres in anaphase I requires Bub1.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Gull, I. Hagan, T. Matsumoto, M. Yanagida, Y. Watanabe and P. Nurse for antibodies, strains and FISH probes, and R. Allshire for advice. This work was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and l'Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer and by a fellowship from the Ministère de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur (to P.B. and J-F.M.).

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Correspondence to Jean-Paul Javerzat.

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Bernard, P., Maure, JF. & Javerzat, JP. Fission yeast Bub1 is essential in setting up the meiotic pattern of chromosome segregation. Nat Cell Biol 3, 522–526 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35074598

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