AUTHOR=Wang Kangji , Okada Hiroki , Bi Erfei 

TITLE=Comparative Analysis of the Roles of Non-muscle Myosin-IIs in Cytokinesis in Budding Yeast, Fission Yeast, and Mammalian Cells

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cell-and-developmental-biology/articles/10.3389/fcell.2020.593400

DOI=10.3389/fcell.2020.593400

ISSN=2296-634X

ABSTRACT=<p>The contractile ring, which plays critical roles in cytokinesis in fungal and animal cells, has fascinated biologists for decades. However, the basic question of how the non-muscle myosin-II and actin filaments are assembled into a ring structure to drive cytokinesis remains poorly understood. It is even more mysterious why and how the budding yeast <italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic>, the fission yeast <italic>Schizosaccharomyces pombe</italic>, and humans construct the ring structure with one, two, and three myosin-II isoforms, respectively. Here, we provide a comparative analysis of the roles of the non-muscle myosin-IIs in cytokinesis in these three model systems, with the goal of defining the common and unique features and highlighting the major questions regarding this family of proteins.</p>