Asterless Licenses Daughter Centrioles to Duplicate for the First Time in Drosophila Embryos

Centrioles form centrosomes and cilia, and defects in any of these three organelles are associated with human disease [1]. Centrioles duplicate once per cell cycle, when a mother centriole assembles an adjacent daughter during S phase. Daughter centrioles cannot support the assembly of another daughter until they mature into mothers during the next cell cycle [2–5]. The molecular nature of this daughter-to-mother transition remains mysterious. Pioneering studies in C. elegans identified a set of core proteins essential for centriole duplication [6–12], and a similar set have now been identified in other species [10, 13–18]. The protein kinase ZYG-1/Sak/Plk4 recruits the inner centriole cartwheel components SAS-6 and SAS-5/Ana2/STIL, which then recruit SAS-4/CPAP, which in turn helps assemble the outer centriole microtubules [19, 20]. In flies and humans, the Asterless/Cep152 protein interacts with Sak/Plk4 and Sas-4/CPAP and is required for centriole duplication, although its precise role in the assembly pathway is unclear [21–24]. Here, we show that Asl is not incorporated into daughter centrioles as they assemble during S phase but is only incorporated once mother and daughter separate at the end of mitosis. The initial incorporation of Asterless (Asl) is irreversible, requires DSas-4, and, crucially, is essential for daughter centrioles to mature into mothers that can support centriole duplication. We therefore propose a “dual-licensing” model of centriole duplication, in which Asl incorporation provides a permanent primary license to allow new centrioles to duplicate for the first time, while centriole disengagement provides a reduplication license to allow mother centrioles to duplicate again.