Genetic analysis of the His-to-Asp phosphorelay implicated in mitotic cell cycle control: involvement of histidine-kinase genes of Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

Common histidine-to-aspartate (His-to-Asp) phosphorelay signaling systems involve three types of signaling components: a sensor His-kinase, a response regulator, and a histidine-containing phosphotransfer (HPt) protein. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, two response regulators, Mcs4 and Prr1, have been identified, and it was shown that they are involved in signal transduction in stress responses. Furthermore, Mcs4 and Prr1 appear to be involved in mitotic cell-cycle control and meiosis, respectively. Recently we have identified Spy1 (also known as Mpr1), which encodes an HPt phosphotransmitter, and reported that Spy1, together with Mcs4, plays a role in cell cycle regulation. In this study, we identified and characterized three genes encoding histidine kinase, named Phk1, Phk2, and Phk3 (S. pombe histidine kinase) (also referred as Mak2, Mak3, and Mak1, respectively). Deletion of individual kinase genes has no apparent phenotypes but multiple deletion of these kinases showed the same phenotype of Spyl (Mpr1)-deficient cells, indicating precocious entry into M phase. These results indicated that three histidine kinases that work upstream of the HPt-transmitter, Spy1 (Mpr1), have a redundant function in cell cycle control.

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