phosphate on cell division

[salahuddin]

what is the effect of phosphate on cell division?

[j2buttonsw]

Cell biologists have long known that the cell's progress toward division is controlled by a group of kinases, enzymes that add phosphate groups to a variety of cell proteins. For the most part, though, they've had few clues to what those phosphate additions actually do.

During nitrogen (ammonia) or phosphate starvation cells activate

1) The Ntr system to find tiny amounts of nitrogen in sources such as glutamine

2) The Pho system which triggers the production of alkaline phosphatase, to scavenge inorganic phosphate from organic sources.