Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Lincoln's Inn
Fields, London, UK.
Paul Nurse identified
the key regulator of the cell cycle, the gene
cdc2, during the years 1976-80. He showed that
the product of this gene controls cell division
(transition from G2 to M). Nurse discovered the gene
cdc2 in the fission yeast
Schizosaccharomyces pombe. He later showed
that cdc2 had the same function as the gene
CDC28 in the distantly related baker's
Thus, cdc2 has more than one function in the
cell cycle, controlling both the transition from G1
to S and G2 to M. In 1987 Paul Nurse isolated the
corresponding human gene, later called CDK1.
These findings showed that the CDK function has been
conserved through evolution.
The gene CDK1 encodes a protein that is a
member of a family called cyclin dependent kinases
(CDK). These molecules function by linking phosphate
groups to other proteins (phosphorylation, figure to
the left). Today half a dozen different CDK-molecules
have been found in humans.