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General Comment |
Chu T, et al 2001 reported that cortex, a Drosophila gene required to complete oocyte meiosis,
is a member of the Cdc20/fizzy protein family.
Mutations in cortex and grauzone cause abnormal arrest in Drosophila female
meiosis. cortex was mapped to a 14 kb interval in 26F-27A by the male
recombination mapping method. The predicted amino acid sequence indicates that
cortex encodes a WD-repeat protein and is a distant member of the Cdc20
protein family. Results from a developmental Northern analysis showed that the
cortex transcript is expressed at high levels during oogenesis and early
embryogenesis. Interestingly, the meiotic metaphase-anaphase II arrest defect
in embryos laid by cortex homozygous females resembles the mitotic
metaphase-anaphase defects observed in yeast cdc20 mutants. The predicted
nature of the Cortex protein, together with the observed meiotic phenotype in
cortex mutants, suggest that a similar pathway to the cdc20 dependent
APC-mediated proteolysis pathway, which governs the metaphase-anaphase
transition in mitosis, is also important in regulating oocyte meiosis, genesis.
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