Katrina Cooper, Ph.D.

The cell cycle machinery that regulates mitotic cell divisions is highly conserved and essential for the faithful segregation of chromosomes.  During meiosis, the machinery that drives the cell cycle must be remodeled to allow the different function of the cell to take place, thus maintaining  chromosome fidelity.  One of the ways in which this is accomplished is by the expression of meiosis specific homoluges of cell cycle regulatory proteins that are required for meiotic progression.  A second way by which the mitotic cell cycle machinery is remodeled to perform meiosis is by the key mitotic regulators having new additional roles during meiotic divisions.  Thus the focus of my laboratory is use the model system Saccharomyces cerevisiae to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which these regulators govern meiotic divisions as well as their role in controlling meiotic checkpoints.