细胞分裂过程需要一系列有序的事件来确保遗传信息的正确复制及其准确分布。这种复制周期的调控非常复杂，使得了解其关键原理很困难。为了研究真核细胞有丝分裂周期的核心引擎，Damien Coudreuse 和 Paul Nurse在裂殖酵母中生成了一个高度简化的最小控制网络。基于用基因工程方法做成的单一CDK（依赖于细胞周期蛋白的激酶）振荡器的这个体系，在没有那些在能够完全发挥功能的细胞中起作用的很多已知的调控性输入和反馈存在的情况下，实现了细胞周期中主要事件的有序演进。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
Nature doi:10.1038/nature09543
Driving the cell cycle with a minimal CDK control network
Damien Coudreuse& Paul Nurse
Control of eukaryotic cell proliferation involves an extended regulatory network, the complexity of which has made it difficult to understand the basic principles of the cell cycle. To investigate the core engine of the mitotic cycle we have generated a minimal control network in fission yeast that efficiently sustains cellular reproduction. Here we demonstrate that orderly progression through the major events of the cell cycle can be driven by oscillation of an engineered monomolecular cyclin-dependent protein kinase (CDK) module lacking much of the canonical regulation. We show further that the CDK oscillator acts as the primary organizer of the cell cycle, imposing timing and directionality to a system of two CDK activity thresholds that define independent cell cycle phases. We propose that this simple core architecture forms the basic control of the eukaryotic cell cycle.
