A roller coaster ride with the mitotic cyclins

Cyclins are discovered as proteins that accumulate progressively through interphase and disappear abruptly at mitosis during each cell cycle. In mammalian cells, cyclin A accumulates from late G1 phase and is destroyed before metaphase, and cyclin B is destroyed slightly later at anaphase. The abundance of the mitotic cyclins is mainly regulated at the levels of transcription and proteolysis. Transcription is stimulated and repressed by several transcription factors, including B-MYB, E2F, FOXM1, and NF-Y. Elements in the promoter, including CCRE/CDE and CHR, are in part responsible for the cell cycle oscillation of transcription. Destruction of the mitotic cyclins is carried out by the ubiquitin ligases APC/CCDC20 and APC/CCDH1. Central to our knowledge is the understanding of how APC/C is turned on from anaphase to early G1 phase, and turned off from late G1 till the spindle-assembly checkpoint is deactivated in metaphase. Reciprocal actions of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) on APC/C, as well as on the SCF complexes ensure that the mitotic cyclins are destroyed only at the proper time.