Transcriptional control of the cell cycle

Cell division is a highly coordinated process. In the last decades, many plant cell cycle regulators have been identified. Strikingly, only a few transcriptional regulators are known, although a significant amount of the genome is transcribed in a cell cycle phase-dependent manner. E2F–DP transcription factors and three repeat MYB proteins are responsible for the expression of genes at the G1-to-S and G2-to-M transition, respectively. However, these two mechanisms cannot explain completely the transcriptional regulation seen during the cell cycle. Correspondingly, several new transcriptional regulators have been characterized, stressing the importance of transcriptional control during the cell cycle.