Meiotic shugoshins differ from mitotic ones by arginine-reach C-terminal motif in yeast, plant, animals, and human

Abstract

Background. Shugoshins (SGOs) are proteins that protect cohesins located at the centromeres of sister chromatids from their early cleavage during mitosis and meiosis in plants, fungi, and animals. Their function is to prevent premature sister-chromatid disjunction and segregation. Meiotic SGOs prevent segregation of sister chromatids in meiosis I, thus permitting homologous chromosomes to segregate and reduce chromosome number to haploid set. The study focused on the structural differences among shugoshins acting during mitosis and meiosis that cause differences in chromosome behavior in these two types of cell division in different organisms.