Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
Cdc7 kinase and its activator Dbf4 protein, originally identified in budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are widely conserved in eukaryotes including fission yeast and human. Dbf4-related activators bind and stimulate kinase activity of Cdc7-like catalytic subunit. Its kinase activity is cell cycle-regulated, mainly through availability of the activation subunit whose level increases at G1/S boundary and is maintained at a high level throughout S phase. MCM2 protein is among physiologically important substrates. Genetic studies in fission yeast indicate that Cdc7-related kinase complex also functions in meiosis, uninduced mutagenesis, DNA replication checkpoint signaling and maintenance of chromatin structures during S phase.