The critical role that the family of regulatory proteins known as cyclins play in eukaryotic cell cycle regulation is well established. The best-characterized cyclin complex is the mitotic cyclin B/Cdc2 p34 kinase, the active component of maturing promoting factor. Cyclin A accumulates prior to cyclin B in the cell cycle, appears to be involved in control of S phase and has been shown to associate with cyclin- dependent kinase-2 (Cdk2). In addition, cyclin A has been implicated in cell transformation and is found in complexes with E1A, transcription factors DRTF1 and E2F and retinoblastoma protein, p110. A second form of cyclin A, named cyclin A1 because of its high sequence homology to Xenopus cyclin A1, is most highly expressed in germ cells. It has been proposed that cyclin A1 can associate with Cdk2, p39 and Cdc2 p34.
