Formins are conserved actin nucleators responsible for the assembly of diverse actin structures. Many formins are controlled through an autoinhibitory mechanism involving the interaction of a C-terminal DAD sequence with an N-terminal DID sequence. Here, we show that the fission yeast formin for3p, which mediates actin cable assembly and polarized cell growth, is regulated by a similar autoinhibitory mechanism in vivo. Multiple sites govern for3p localization to cell tips. The localization and activity of for3p are inhibited by an intramolecular interaction of divergent DAD and DID-like sequences. A for3p DAD mutant expressed at endogenous levels produces more robust actin cables, which appear to have normal organization and dynamics. We identify cdc42p as the primary Rho GTPase involved in actin cable assembly and for3p regulation. Both cdc42p, which binds at the N terminus of for3p, and bud6p, which binds near the C-terminal DAD-like sequence, are needed for for3p localization and full activity, but a mutation in the for3p DAD restores for3p localization and other phenotypes of cdc42 and bud6 mutants. In particular, the for3p DAD mutation suppresses the bipolar growth (NETO) defect of bud6⌬ cells. These findings suggest that cdc42p and bud6p activate for3p by relieving autoinhibition. INTRODUCTIONFormins are key regulators of the actin cytoskeleton and form a large family conserved in all eukaryotes Faix and Grosse, 2006). These proteins are necessary for the formation of numerous actin structures, including stress fibers, filopodia, cytokinetic actin rings, junctional actin structures, or actin cables. The proper regulation of formins is likely to be critical for cellular processes such as cell migration, cytokinesis, cell adhesion, and cell polarity.A well characterized biochemical activity of formins is to nucleate and elongate linear actin filaments Sagot et al., 2002b;Kovar et al., 2003;Li and Higgs, 2003;Moseley et al., 2004). This activity occurs through the formin-homology (FH) 2 domain, which dimerizes to form a doughnut-shaped structure containing multiple actin-binding sites in its core Otomo et al., 2005b). This dimer is thought to stabilize otherwise unstable intermediates in the assembly of new actin filaments, and it binds processively to the fast-elongating barbed end of existing actin filaments (Pring et al., 2003;Kovar and Pollard, 2004).The adjacent FH1 domain binds profilin-actin and helps accelerate the elongation of actin filaments (Chang et al., 1997;Evangelista et al., 1997;Watanabe et al., 1997;Romero et al., 2004;Kovar et al., 2006). The budding yeast formin Bni1p also binds the actin monomer-binding protein Bud6p, which, similar to profilin, stimulates the activity of the FH2 domain (Moseley and Goode, 2005). In addition to their activity in actin filament nucleation and elongation, some formins have been suggested to also function in actin bundling and severing, further contributing to the remodeling of actin structures (Harris et al., 2004Moseley and Goode, 2005;Harris et al., 2006...

Bipolar spindle assembly requires a balance of forces where kinesin-5 produces outward pushing forces to antagonize the inward pulling forces from kinesin-14 or dynein. Accordingly, Kinesin-5 inactivation results in force imbalance leading to monopolar spindle and chromosome segregation failure. In fission yeast, force balance is restored when both kinesin-5 Cut7 and kinesin-14 Pkl1 are deleted, restoring spindle bipolarity. Here we show that the cut7Δpkl1Δ spindle is fully competent for chromosome segregation independently of motor activity, except for kinesin-6 Klp9, which is required for anaphase spindle elongation. We demonstrate that cut7Δpkl1Δ spindle bipolarity requires the microtubule antiparallel bundler PRC1/Ase1 to recruit CLASP/Cls1 to stabilize microtubules. Brownian dynamics-kinetic Monte Carlo simulations show that Ase1 and Cls1 activity are sufficient for initial bipolar spindle formation. We conclude that pushing forces generated by microtubule polymerization are sufficient to promote spindle pole separation and the assembly of bipolar spindle in the absence of molecular motors.