ß 2014. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd | Journal of Cell Science (2014) 127, 2121 doi:10.1242/jcs.153734
JCS PRIZE
2013 Winner: Liam Cheeseman Michael Way (Editor-in-Chief)
Liam Cheeseman
complex, in which RNAi was used (Booth et al., 2011), electron microscopy of spindles depleted by using knocksideways at metaphase did not reduce the number of microtubules within kinetochore fibers (Cheeseman et al., 2013). This difference, Liam believes, underlines the importance of controlling the timing of protein inactivation during a dynamic process: in the case of the RNAi study, the target protein was depleted prior to mitosis and was absent during spindle assembly; whereas in the case of the knocksideways study, the cell was able to form a mitotic spindle and align its chromosomes before the bridge complex was removed. Liam suggests, therefore, that using knocksideways to study other mitotic spindle proteins may help uncover new functions that cannot be revealed when using RNAi-mediated depletion. Liam is now a postdoctoral research fellow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK) in the research group of Melina Schuh, where he is studying meiosis in mammalian oocytes. In his current project, he aims to investigate how mammalian eggs avoid being fertilised by more than one sperm cell – a principal cause of miscarriage in humans. As well as shedding light on this process, this knowledge will also help improve techniques such as IVF. References Booth, D. G., Hood, F. E., Prior, I. A. and Royle, S. J. (2011). A TACC3/ch-TOG/ clathrin complex stabilises kinetochore fibres by inter-microtubule bridging. EMBO J. 30, 906-919. Cheeseman, L. P., Harry, E. F., McAinsh, A. D., Prior, I. A. and Royle, S. J. (2013). Specific removal of TACC3-ch-TOG-clathrin at metaphase deregulates kinetochore fiber tension. J. Cell Sci. 126, 2102-2113. Robinson, M. S., Sahlender, D. A. and Foster, S. D. (2010). Rapid inactivation of proteins by rapamycin-induced rerouting to mitochondria. Dev. Cell 18, 324-331.
2121
Journal of Cell Science
We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2013 JCS prize is Liam Cheeseman for his paper entitled ‘Specific removal of TACC3–ch-TOG–clathrin at metaphase deregulates kinetochore fiber tension’ (Cheeseman et al., 2013). The prize, $1000, is awarded annually to a junior researcher who is the first author of the paper that is judged by the Editors and Editorial Board to be the best eligible paper published in Journal of Cell Science that year. To be considered for the prize, the first author must be a student or a postdoc of no more than five years’ standing. Liam was born in the UK but grew up in France. After studying Physiology and Cell Biology for two years at the Universite´ Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France), he completed his undergraduate degree at Imperial College London as part of the Erasmus exchange program. He then started a Wellcome Trust-funded 4year PhD course at the University of Liverpool in Molecular and Cellular Physiology. Following the first year of laboratory rotation projects, he became interested in the process of cell division and chose to undertake his PhD in the laboratory of Stephen Royle, studying the role of inter-microtubule bridges in mitotic spindles. Shortly before the start of his PhD, Liam attended a seminar presented by Margaret Robinson (University of Cambridge, UK), who demonstrated the use of a technique called ‘knocksideways’ to rapidly inactivate proteins by relocating them to the outer membrane of mitochondria (Robinson et al., 2010). Seeing the potential use for the technique in rapidly inactivating spindle proteins at different stages of mitosis, he decided that his PhD project would be to apply this method to a type of intermicrotubule bridge formed by three proteins: clathrin, ch-TOG and TACC3 (Booth et al., 2011). Liam showed that it was possible to remove TACC3–ch-TOG– clathrin complexes from assembled mitotic spindles of dividing cells in under 5 minutes with an efficiency similar to that of RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated protein depletion. This allowed him to remove the bridge complex from spindles at different time points during mitosis and analyse the subsequent effects on chromosome alignment and segregation. Two temporally distinct functions for the bridge complex were found: first, during prometaphase, to help chromosomal alignment along the equator of the cell; and second, at metaphase, to help the cell satisfy the spindle checkpoint and progress to anaphase (Cheeseman et al., 2013). By investigating cells in which knocksideways was performed at metaphase, Liam found that the spindle checkpoint remained active because of a loss of tension within the mitotic spindle. Fourdimensional imaging and tracking of kinetochore movements also supported this idea because their movements were altered. However, in contrast to a previous study of the TACC3–ch-TOG–clathrin
JCS PRIZE
2013 Winner: Liam Cheeseman Michael Way (Editor-in-Chief)
Liam Cheeseman
complex, in which RNAi was used (Booth et al., 2011), electron microscopy of spindles depleted by using knocksideways at metaphase did not reduce the number of microtubules within kinetochore fibers (Cheeseman et al., 2013). This difference, Liam believes, underlines the importance of controlling the timing of protein inactivation during a dynamic process: in the case of the RNAi study, the target protein was depleted prior to mitosis and was absent during spindle assembly; whereas in the case of the knocksideways study, the cell was able to form a mitotic spindle and align its chromosomes before the bridge complex was removed. Liam suggests, therefore, that using knocksideways to study other mitotic spindle proteins may help uncover new functions that cannot be revealed when using RNAi-mediated depletion. Liam is now a postdoctoral research fellow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK) in the research group of Melina Schuh, where he is studying meiosis in mammalian oocytes. In his current project, he aims to investigate how mammalian eggs avoid being fertilised by more than one sperm cell – a principal cause of miscarriage in humans. As well as shedding light on this process, this knowledge will also help improve techniques such as IVF. References Booth, D. G., Hood, F. E., Prior, I. A. and Royle, S. J. (2011). A TACC3/ch-TOG/ clathrin complex stabilises kinetochore fibres by inter-microtubule bridging. EMBO J. 30, 906-919. Cheeseman, L. P., Harry, E. F., McAinsh, A. D., Prior, I. A. and Royle, S. J. (2013). Specific removal of TACC3-ch-TOG-clathrin at metaphase deregulates kinetochore fiber tension. J. Cell Sci. 126, 2102-2113. Robinson, M. S., Sahlender, D. A. and Foster, S. D. (2010). Rapid inactivation of proteins by rapamycin-induced rerouting to mitochondria. Dev. Cell 18, 324-331.
2121
Journal of Cell Science
We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2013 JCS prize is Liam Cheeseman for his paper entitled ‘Specific removal of TACC3–ch-TOG–clathrin at metaphase deregulates kinetochore fiber tension’ (Cheeseman et al., 2013). The prize, $1000, is awarded annually to a junior researcher who is the first author of the paper that is judged by the Editors and Editorial Board to be the best eligible paper published in Journal of Cell Science that year. To be considered for the prize, the first author must be a student or a postdoc of no more than five years’ standing. Liam was born in the UK but grew up in France. After studying Physiology and Cell Biology for two years at the Universite´ Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France), he completed his undergraduate degree at Imperial College London as part of the Erasmus exchange program. He then started a Wellcome Trust-funded 4year PhD course at the University of Liverpool in Molecular and Cellular Physiology. Following the first year of laboratory rotation projects, he became interested in the process of cell division and chose to undertake his PhD in the laboratory of Stephen Royle, studying the role of inter-microtubule bridges in mitotic spindles. Shortly before the start of his PhD, Liam attended a seminar presented by Margaret Robinson (University of Cambridge, UK), who demonstrated the use of a technique called ‘knocksideways’ to rapidly inactivate proteins by relocating them to the outer membrane of mitochondria (Robinson et al., 2010). Seeing the potential use for the technique in rapidly inactivating spindle proteins at different stages of mitosis, he decided that his PhD project would be to apply this method to a type of intermicrotubule bridge formed by three proteins: clathrin, ch-TOG and TACC3 (Booth et al., 2011). Liam showed that it was possible to remove TACC3–ch-TOG– clathrin complexes from assembled mitotic spindles of dividing cells in under 5 minutes with an efficiency similar to that of RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated protein depletion. This allowed him to remove the bridge complex from spindles at different time points during mitosis and analyse the subsequent effects on chromosome alignment and segregation. Two temporally distinct functions for the bridge complex were found: first, during prometaphase, to help chromosomal alignment along the equator of the cell; and second, at metaphase, to help the cell satisfy the spindle checkpoint and progress to anaphase (Cheeseman et al., 2013). By investigating cells in which knocksideways was performed at metaphase, Liam found that the spindle checkpoint remained active because of a loss of tension within the mitotic spindle. Fourdimensional imaging and tracking of kinetochore movements also supported this idea because their movements were altered. However, in contrast to a previous study of the TACC3–ch-TOG–clathrin
