Calibrated mitotic oscillator drives motile ciliogenesis

Abstract

Taming mitosis for differentiation The mitotic oscillator consists of molecular switches known to drive cell division forward. This conserved clocklike regulatory circuit has not previously been implicated in cellular processes other than division. Multiciliated cells generate motile cilia-powered flows that are essential for brain, respiratory, and reproductive functions. Al Jord et al. found that the mitotic oscillator was activated in a calibrated fashion in terminally differentiating progenitors of multiciliated cells (see the Perspective by Levine and Holland). The oscillator function was used to drive massive production of cilia-nucleating centrioles while avoiding mitotic commitment. Thus, mammalian postmitotic progenitors can recruit and calibrate the mitotic oscillator to impose timing and directionality of cellular differentiation instead of proliferation. Science , this issue p. 803 ; see also p. 716