The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cell Cycle

INTRODUCTION The cell cycle is the process of vegetative (asexual) cellular reproduction; in a normal cell cycle, one cell gives rise to two cells that are genetically identical to the original cell. Questions about the cell cycle can be conveniently divided into two categories. First, one can ask how a cell carries out a cell cycle, once it has undertaken to do so. Into this category fall questions about the morphological and biochemical aspects of cell-cycle events and about the mechanisms that ensure their temporal and functional coordination. Second, one can ask what determines when a cell will undertake a cell cycle, or how the overall control of cell proliferation is achieved. Into this category fall questions about the coordination of successive cell cycles, the coordination of growth with division, the coordination of cell proliferation with the availability of essential nutrients, and the selection of developmental alternatives. In the text that follows, we consider these two categories of questions in turn. Our bibliography is intended more as a guide to the literature than as a historically accurate record of the development of the field; we apologize to the earlier workers whose contributions thus get less explicit credit than they deserve. HOW DOES A CELL CARRY OUT A CELL CYCLE? As has often been noted, successful completion of a cell cycle requires a cell to integrate the processes that duplicate the cellular material with the processes that partition the duplicated material into two viable daughter cells. Another useful formulation of the...