Role of protein kinase PLK1 in the epigenetic maintenance of centromeres
Duccio Conti, Arianna Esposito Verza, Marion E. Pesenti, Verena Cmentowski, Ingrid R. Vetter, Dongqing Pan, Andrea Musacchio
Abstract
The centromere, a chromosome locus defined by the histone H3–like protein centromeric protein A (CENP-A), promotes assembly of the kinetochore to bind microtubules during cell division. Centromere maintenance requires CENP-A to be actively replenished by dedicated protein machinery in the early G 1 phase of the cell cycle to compensate for its dilution after DNA replication. Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) limit CENP-A deposition to once per cell cycle and function as negative regulators outside of early G 1 . Antithetically, Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) promotes CENP-A deposition in early G 1 , but the molecular details of this process are still unknown. We reveal here a phosphorylation network that recruits PLK1 to the deposition machinery to control a conformational switch required for licensing the CENP-A deposition reaction. Our findings clarify how PLK1 contributes to the epigenetic maintenance of centromeres.