Temporal control of gene expression by ERK MAP kinase during cell cycle progression from G0/G1 to S phase

The ERK family of MAP kinase plays a critical role in growth factor-stimulated cell cycle progression from G0/G1 to S phase. But, how sustained activation of ERK promotes G1 progression has remained unclear. Here, our systematic analysis on the temporal program of ERK-dependent gene expression shows that sustained activation of ERK is required for induction and maintenance of the decreased expression levels of a set of genes. Moreover, our cell biological analysis reveals that these ERK-dependent downregulated genes have the ability to block S phase entry. Cessation of ERK activation at mid or late G1 leads to a rapid increase of these anti-proliferative genes and results in the inhibition of S phase entry. These findings uncover an important mechanism by which the duration of ERK activation regulates cell cycle progression through dynamic changes in gene expression, and identify novel ERK target genes crucial for the regulation of cell cycle progression.

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Yamamoto T, Ebisuya M, Ashida F, Okamoto K, Yonehara S, Nishida E