title: A quest for cytoplasmic factors that control the cell cycle.
abstract: Between 1966 and 1986 the author and his former students carried out an investigation into the cytoplasmic factors that regulate nuclear behaviour during meiotic maturation of oocytes. This anecdotal chronicle traces the development of the problems and the direction in which their solutions were attempted in the course of this investigation. The author examines why he decided to study oocyte maturation, how he discovered progesterone as a maturation-inducing hormone and maturation promoting factor (MPF) and cytostatic factor (CSF) as meiosis-controlling factors, how the idea of the cell cycle without the cell occurred to him, and how it was materialised by invention of a cell-free system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Masui
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002453:Cell Cycle / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000502:physiology; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006728:Hormones / Q000502:physiology; D016200:Maturation-Promoting Factor / Q000502:physiology; D009865:Oocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D009866:Oogenesis / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D006728:Hormones; D016200:Maturation-Promoting Factor