The dynamic replicon: adapting to a changing cellular environment

Eukaryotic cells are often exposed to fluctuations in growth conditions as well as endogenous and exogenous stress-related agents. During development, global patterns of gene transcription change substantially, and these changes are associated with altered patterns of DNA replication and larger distances between replication origins in somatic cells compared to embryos. Conversely, when cells experience difficulties while replicating DNA, the replication program is dramatically altered and distances between replication origins decrease. Recent evidence indicates that each unit of replication, or replicon, can correspond to one or more potential replication origins, but in the case of multiple potential origins, only one is selected to initiate replication of the replicon. How one origin is selected from multiple potential origins and how origin densities are regulated during genome duplication remains unclear. The following review addresses some of the mechanisms involved in regulating replication origins during both a normal and perturbed eukaryotic cell cycle.