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Science 8 December 1995:
Vol. 270. no. 5242, pp. 1591 - 1594
DOI: 10.1126/science.270.5242.1591
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Special

The Centromere: Hub of Chromosomal Activities

A. F. Pluta,  A. M. Mackay,  A. M. Ainsztein,  I. G. Goldberg,  W. C. Earnshaw (1)

Centromeres are the structures that direct eukaryotic chromosome segregation in mitosis and meiosis. There are two major classes of centromeres. Point centromeres, found in the budding yeasts, are compact loci whose constituent proteins are now beginning to yield to biochemical analysis. Regional centromeres, best described in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, encompass many kilobases of DNA and are packaged into heterochromatin. Their associated proteins are as yet poorly understood. In addition to providing the site for microtubule attachment, centromeres also have an important role in checkpoint regulation during mitosis.


The authors are in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
(1) To whom correspondence should be addressed.


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G.K.T. Chan, B.T. Schaar, and T.J. Yen (1998)
J. Cell Biol. 143, 49-63
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E. B. Cambareri, R. Aisner, and J. Carbon (1998)
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ZW10 Helps Recruit Dynactin and Dynein to the Kinetochore.
D. A. Starr, B. C. Williams, T. S. Hays, and M. L. Goldberg (1998)
J. Cell Biol. 142, 763-774
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Mechanism of DNA segregation in prokaryotes: Replicon pairing by parC of plasmid R1.
R. B. Jensen, R. Lurz, and K. Gerdes (1998)
PNAS 95, 8550-8555
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Chromosome Structure and Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 cDNA Integration: Centromeric Alphoid Repeats Are a Disfavored Target.
S. Carteau, C. Hoffmann, and F. Bushman (1998)
J. Virol. 72, 4005-4014
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Mutations Synthetically Lethal with cep1 Target S. cerevisiae Kinetochore Components.
R. E. Baker, K. Harris, and K. Zhang (1998)
Genetics 149, 73-85
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Centromere Protein B Null Mice are Mitotically and Meiotically Normal but Have Lower Body and Testis Weights.
D. F. Hudson, K. J. Fowler, E. Earle, R. Saffery, P. Kalitsis, H. Trowell, J. Hill, N. G. Wreford, D. M. de Kretser, M. R. Cancilla, et al. (1998)
J. Cell Biol. 141, 309-319
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Cell Cycle Arrest in cdc20 Mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Is Independent of Ndc10p and Kinetochore Function but Requires a Subset of Spindle Checkpoint Genes.
P. A. Tavormina and D. J. Burke (1998)
Genetics 148, 1701-1713
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Targeted disruption of mouse centromere protein C gene leads to mitotic disarray and early embryo death.
P. Kalitsis, K. J. Fowler, E. Earle, J. Hill, and K. H. A. Choo (1998)
PNAS 95, 1136-1141
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
PUMA1: a novel protein that associates with the centrosomes, spindle and centromeres in the nematode Parascaris.
M. Esteban, G Giovinazzo, A de la Hera, and C Goday (1998)
J. Cell Sci. 111, 723-735
   Abstract »    PDF »
A Subunit of the Anaphase-Promoting Complex Is a Centromere-Associated Protein in Mammalian Cells.
P.-M. Jörgensen, E. Brundell, M. Starborg, and C. Höög (1998)
Mol. Cell. Biol. 18, 468-476
   Abstract »    Full Text »
Spatial Organization of Large-Scale Chromatin Domains in the Nucleus: A Magnified View of Single Chromosome Territories.
J. Ferreira, G. Paolella, C. Ramos, and A. I. Lamond (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 139, 1597-1610
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Probing the Architecture of a Simple Kinetochore Using DNA-Protein Crosslinking.
C. W. Espelin, K. B. Kaplan, and P. K. Sorger (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 139, 1383-1396
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Budding yeast centromere composition and assembly as revealed by in vivo cross-linking.
P. B. Meluh and D. Koshland (1997)
Genes & Dev. 11, 3401-3412
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Cell Cycle-regulated Expression, Phosphorylation, and Degradation of p55Cdc. A MAMMALIAN HOMOLOG OF CDC20/Fizzy/slp1.
J. Weinstein (1997)
J. Biol. Chem. 272, 28501-28511
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Arabidopsis thaliana Centromere Regions: Genetic Map Positions and Repetitive DNA Structure.
E. K. Round, S. K. Flowers, and E. J. Richards (1997)
Genome Res. 7, 1045-1053
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Microtubule-dependent Motor Centromere-associated Protein E (CENP-E) Is an Integral Component of Kinetochore Corona Fibers That Link Centromeres to Spindle Microtubules.
X. Yao, K. L. Anderson, and D. W. Cleveland (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 139, 435-447
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Conservation of the Centromere/Kinetochore Protein ZW10.
D. A. Starr, B. C. Williams, Z. Li, B. Etemad-Moghadam, R. K. Dawe, and M. L. Goldberg (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 138, 1289-1301
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
CENP-E is an essential kinetochore motor in maturing oocytes and is masked during Mos-dependent, cell cycle arrest at metaphase II.
N. S. Duesbery, T. Choi, K. D. Brown, K. W. Wood, J. Resau, K. Fukasawa, D. W. Cleveland, and G. F. Vande Woude (1997)
PNAS 94, 9165-9170
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Purification and characterization of a CENP-B homologue protein that binds to the centromeric K-type repeat DNA of Schizosaccharomyces pombe.
J.-K. Lee, J. A. Huberman, and J. Hurwitz (1997)
PNAS 94, 8427-8432
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Chromatin Dynamics in Interphase Nuclei and Its Implications for Nuclear Structure.
J. R. Abney, B. Cutler, M. L. Fillbach, D. Axelrod, and B. A. Scalettar (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 137, 1459-1468
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
A Centromere DNA-binding Protein from Fission Yeast Affects Chromosome Segregation and Has Homology to Human CENP-B.
D. Halverson, M. Baum, J. Stryker, J. Carbon, and L. Clarke (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 136, 487-500
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Assembly of CENP-A into Centromeric Chromatin Requires a Cooperative Array of Nucleosomal DNA Contact Sites.
R. D. Shelby, O. Vafa, and K. F. Sullivan (1997)
J. Cell Biol. 136, 501-513
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The product of proliferation disrupter is concentrated at centromeres and required for mitotic chromosome condensation and cell proliferation in Drosophila..
T Torok, P D Harvie, M Buratovich, and P J Bryant (1997)
Genes & Dev. 11, 213-225
   Abstract »    PDF »
Degradation of Nucleosome-associated Centromeric Histone H3-like Protein CENP-A Induced by Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Protein ICP0.
P. Lomonte, K. F. Sullivan, and R. D. Everett (2001)
J. Biol. Chem. 276, 5829-5835
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Human centromere protein A (CENP-A) can replace histone H3 in nucleosome reconstitution in vitro.
K. Yoda, S. Ando, S. Morishita, K. Houmura, K. Hashimoto, K. Takeyasu, and T. Okazaki (2000)
PNAS 97, 7266-7271
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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