When they took away the ability of the nematode to secrete cytokinin
certain cell cycle genes were not activated at the feeding site and the nematodes did not develop.
Breeden, Prentice and Zhao, whose study appeared in the May 8 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared their new algorithm to other methods used to analyze microarray experiments designed to
identify cell cycle genes in yeast.
In these prior studies higher MELK expression in more aggressive tumor sample / cell lines is often correlated with
other cell cycle genes.
Prior studies indicate that MELK is
a cell cycle gene involved in mitosis.