A localized calcium transient and polar body abscission.

Guolong Mo, Ruizhen Li, Zachary Swider, Julie Leblanc, William M Bement, X Johné Liu

Cell cycle (Georgetown, Tex.) 2022 Nov

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Polar body emission is a special form of cytokinesis in oocyte meiosis that ensures the correct number of chromosomes in reproduction-competent eggs. The molecular mechanism of the last step, polar body abscission, is poorly understood. While it has been proposed that Ca2+ signaling plays important roles in embryonic cytokinesis, to date transient increases in intracellular free Ca2+ have been difficult to document in oocyte meiosis except for the global Ca2+ wave induced by sperm at fertilization. Here, we find that microinjection of the calcium chelator dibromo-BAPTA inhibits polar body abscission in Xenopus laevis oocytes. Using a novel, microtubule-targeted ratio-metric calcium sensor, we detected a calcium transient that is focused at the contractile ring-associated plasma membrane and which occurred after anaphase and constriction of the contractile ring but prior to abscission. This calcium transient was confirmed by mobile calcium probes. Further, the Ca2+-sensitive protein kinase Cβ C2 domain transiently translocated to the contractile ring-associated membrane simultaneously with the calcium transient. Collectively, these results demonstrate that a calcium transient, apparently originating at the contractile ring-associated plasma membrane, promotes polar body abscission.

Citation

Guolong Mo, Ruizhen Li, Zachary Swider, Julie Leblanc, William M Bement, X Johné Liu. A localized calcium transient and polar body abscission. Cell cycle (Georgetown, Tex.). 2022 Nov;21(21):2239-2254