scholarly journals A visual atlas of meiotic protein dynamics in living fission yeast

Open Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 200357
Author(s):  
Wilber Escorcia ◽  
Vishnu P. Tripathi ◽  
Ji-Ping Yuan ◽  
Susan L. Forsburg

Meiosis is a carefully choreographed dynamic process that re-purposes proteins from somatic/vegetative cell division, as well as meiosis-specific factors, to carry out the differentiation and recombination pathway common to sexually reproducing eukaryotes. Studies of individual proteins from a variety of different experimental protocols can make it difficult to compare details between them. Using a consistent protocol in otherwise wild-type fission yeast cells, this report provides an atlas of dynamic protein behaviour of representative proteins at different stages during normal zygotic meiosis in fission yeast. This establishes common landmarks to facilitate comparison of different proteins and shows that initiation of S phase likely occurs prior to nuclear fusion/karyogamy.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilber Escorcia ◽  
Vishnu P. Tripathi ◽  
Ji-Ping Yuan ◽  
Susan L. Forsburg

AbstractMeiosis is a carefully choreographed dynamic process that re-purposes proteins from somatic/vegetative cell division, as well as meiosis-specific factors, to carry out the differentiation and recombination pathway common to sexually reproducing eukaryotes. Studies of individual proteins from a variety of different experimental protocols can make it difficult to compare details between them. Using a consistent protocol in otherwise wild type fission yeast cells, this report provides an atlas of dynamic protein behavior of representative proteins at different stages during normal zygotic meiosis in fission yeast. This establishes common landmarks to facilitate comparison of different proteins and shows that initiation of S phase likely occurs prior to nuclear fusion/karyogamy.SummaryMeiosis is an important process for sexually reproducing organisms. Unique dynamics of recombination and chromosome segregation are required for this differentiation process. Fission yeast is an excellent model to study meiotic progression and chromosome dynamics. Historically, different methodologies have been used to examine protein dynamics in fixed or live cells, which makes comparisons more difficult. In this report, we use fluorescently tagged proteins and live-cell microscopy under uniform conditions to compare meiotic signposts that define dynamic behavior of proteins during meiotic DNA synthesis, nuclear fusion, chromosome alignment, genetic recombination, metaphase, and meiosis. This establishes a reference atlas of protein behavior during meiotic differentiation.


1999 ◽  
Vol 340 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parisa DANAIE ◽  
Michael ALTMANN ◽  
Michael N. HALL ◽  
Hans TRACHSEL ◽  
Stephen B. HELLIWELL

The essential cap-binding protein (eIF4E) of Saccharomycescerevisiae is encoded by the CDC33 (wild-type) gene, originally isolated as a mutant, cdc33-1, which arrests growth in the G1 phase of the cell cycle at 37 °C. We show that other cdc33 mutants also arrest in G1. One of the first events required for G1-to-S-phase progression is the increased expression of cyclin 3. Constructs carrying the 5ʹ-untranslated region of CLN3 fused to lacZ exhibit weak reporter activity, which is significantly decreased in a cdc33-1 mutant, implying that CLN3 mRNA is an inefficiently translated mRNA that is sensitive to perturbations in the translation machinery. A cdc33-1 strain expressing either stable Cln3p (Cln3-1p) or a hybrid UBI4 5ʹ-CLN3 mRNA, whose translation displays decreased dependence on eIF4E, arrested randomly in the cell cycle. In these cells CLN2 mRNA levels remained high, indicating that Cln3p activity is maintained. Induction of a hybrid UBI4 5ʹ-CLN3 message in a cdc33-1 mutant previously arrested in G1 also caused entry into a new cell cycle. We conclude that eIF4E activity in the G1-phase is critical in allowing sufficient Cln3p activity to enable yeast cells to enter a new cell cycle.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charalampos Rallis ◽  
Michael Mülleder ◽  
Graeme Smith ◽  
Yan Zi Au ◽  
Markus Ralser ◽  
...  

AbstractAmino acid deprivation or supplementation can affect cellular and organismal lifespan, but we know little about the role of concentration changes in free, intracellular amino acids during aging. Here, we determine free amino-acid levels during chronological aging of non-dividing fission yeast cells. We compare wild-type with long-lived mutant cells that lack the Pka1 protein of the protein kinase A signalling pathway. In wild-type cells, total amino-acid levels decrease during aging, but much less so in pka1 mutants. Two amino acids strongly change as a function of age: glutamine decreases, especially in wild-type cells, while aspartate increases, especially in pka1 mutants. Supplementation of glutamine is sufficient to extend the chronological lifespan of wild-type but not of pka1Δ cells. Supplementation of aspartate, on the other hand, shortens the lifespan of pka1Δ but not of wild-type cells. Our results raise the possibility that certain amino acids are biomarkers of aging, and their concentrations during aging can promote or limit cellular lifespan.


2005 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 2597-2603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoon-Jae Song ◽  
Mark F. Stinski

ABSTRACT The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) IE86 protein induces the human fibroblast cell cycle from G0/G1 to G1/S, where cell cycle progression stops. Cells with a wild-type, mutated, or null p53 or cells with null p21 protein were transduced with replication-deficient adenoviruses expressing HCMV IE86 protein or cellular p53 or p21. Even though S-phase genes were activated in a p53 wild-type cell, IE86 protein also induced phospho-Ser15 p53 and p21 independent of p14ARF but dependent on ATM kinase. These cells did not enter the S phase. In human p53 mutant, p53 null, or p21 null cells, IE86 protein did not up-regulate p21, cellular DNA synthesis was not inhibited, but cell division was inhibited. Cells accumulated in the G2/M phase, and there was increased cyclin-dependent kinase 1/cyclin B1 activity. Although the HCMV IE86 protein increases cellular E2F activity, it also blocks cell division in both p53+/+ and p53−/− cells.


2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 602-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Kumar ◽  
Joel A. Huberman

ABSTRACT To elucidate the checkpoint mechanism responsible for slowing passage through S phase when fission yeast cells are treated with the DNA-damaging agent methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), we carried out two-dimensional gel analyses of replication intermediates in cells synchronized by cdc10 block (in G1) followed by release into synchronous S phase. The results indicated that under these conditions early-firing centromeric origins were partially delayed but late-firing telomeric origins were not delayed. Replication intermediates persisted in MMS-treated cells, suggesting that replication fork movement was inhibited. These effects were dependent on the Cds1 checkpoint kinase and were abolished in cells overexpressing the Cdc25 phosphatase, suggesting a role for the Cdc2 cyclin-dependent kinase. We conclude that both partial inhibition of the firing of a subset of origins and inhibition of replication fork movement contribute to the slowing of S phase in MMS-treated fission yeast cells.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wasim A Sayyad ◽  
Thomas D Pollard

Cytokinesis nodes are assemblies of stoichiometric ratios of proteins associated with the plasma membrane, which serve as precursors for the contractile ring during cytokinesis by fission yeast. The total number of nodes is uncertain, because of the limitations of the methods used previously. Here we used the ~140 nm resolution of Airyscan confocal microscopy to resolve a large population of dim, unitary cytokinesis nodes in 3D reconstructions of whole fission yeast cells. Wild-type fission yeast cells make about 200 unitary cytokinesis nodes. Most, but not all of these nodes condense into a contractile ring. The number of cytokinesis nodes scales with cell size in four strains tested, although wide rga4Δ mutant cells form somewhat fewer cytokinesis nodes than expected from the overall trend. The surface density of Pom1 kinase on the plasma membrane around the equators of cells is similar with a wide range of node numbers, so Pom1 does not control cytokinesis node number. However, varying protein concentrations with the nmt1 promoter showed that the numbers of nodes increase above a baseline of about 200 with the total cellular concentration of either Pom1 or the kinase Cdr2.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (26) ◽  
pp. 2871-2873
Author(s):  
Paul Nurse

Cell cycle mutants in the budding and fission yeasts have played critical roles in working out how the eukaryotic cell cycle operates and is controlled. The starting point was Lee Hartwell’s 1970s landmark papers describing the first cell division cycle (CDC) mutants in budding yeast. These mutants were blocked at different cell cycle stages and so were unable to complete the cell cycle, thus defining genes necessary for successful cell division. Inspired by Hartwell’s work, I isolated CDC mutants in the very distantly related fission yeast. This started a program of searches for mutants in fission yeast that revealed a range of phenotypes informative about eukaryotic cell cycle control. These included mutants defining genes that were rate-limiting for the onset of mitosis and of the S-phase, that were responsible for there being only one S-phase in each cell cycle, and that ensured that mitosis only took place when S-phase was properly completed. This is a brief account of the discovery of these mutants and how they led to the identification of cyclin-dependent kinases as core to these cell cycle controls.


1990 ◽  
Vol 110 (5) ◽  
pp. 1617-1621 ◽  
Author(s):  
I M Hagan ◽  
P N Riddle ◽  
J S Hyams

We have used a new cinemicroscopy technique in combination with antitubulin immunofluorescence microscopy to investigate the timing of mitotic events in cells of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe having lengths at division between 7 and 60 microns. Wild-type fission yeast cells divide at a length of 14 microns. Separation of daughter nuclei (anaphase B) proceeds at a rate of 1.6 +/- 0.2 microns min-1, until the spindle extends the length of the cell. Coincident with spindle depolymerization, the nuclei reverse direction and take up positions that will become the center of the two daughter cells. This post-mitotic nuclear migration occurs at a rate of 1.4 +/- 0.5 microns-1. In cells in which the weel+ gene is overexpressed fivefold and that have an average length at mitosis of 28 microns, the rate of nuclear separation was only slightly reduced but, as spindles in these cells measure 20-22 microns, the duration of anaphase B was extended by approximately 40%. By contrast, in the mutant weel.50, which divides at 7 microns, both the rate and duration of anaphase B were indistinguishable from wild type. Nuclei reach the ends of these cells earlier but remain there until a point corresponding to the time of postmitotic nuclear migration in wild type. Thus, the events of mitosis can be extended but not abbreviated. These results are discussed in terms of a mitotic termination control that monitors many different events, one of which is spindle elongation.


2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 1433-1440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Houchens ◽  
Audrey Perreault ◽  
François Bachand ◽  
Thomas J. Kelly

ABSTRACT The initiation of eukaryotic DNA replication is preceded by the assembly of prereplication complexes (pre-RCs) at chromosomal origins of DNA replication. Pre-RC assembly requires the essential DNA replication proteins ORC, Cdc6, and Cdt1 to load the MCM DNA helicase onto chromatin. Saccharomyces cerevisiae Noc3 (ScNoc3), an evolutionarily conserved protein originally implicated in 60S ribosomal subunit trafficking, has been proposed to be an essential regulator of DNA replication that plays a direct role during pre-RC formation in budding yeast. We have cloned Schizosaccharomyces pombe noc3 + (Spnoc3 +), the S. pombe homolog of the budding yeast ScNOC3 gene, and functionally characterized the requirement for the SpNoc3 protein during ribosome biogenesis, cell cycle progression, and DNA replication in fission yeast. We showed that fission yeast SpNoc3 is a functional homolog of budding yeast ScNoc3 that is essential for cell viability and ribosome biogenesis. We also showed that SpNoc3 is required for the normal completion of cell division in fission yeast. However, in contrast to the proposal that ScNoc3 plays an essential role during DNA replication in budding yeast, we demonstrated that fission yeast cells do enter and complete S phase in the absence of SpNoc3, suggesting that SpNoc3 is not essential for DNA replication in fission yeast.


2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1651-1660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel G. Pankratz ◽  
Susan L. Forsburg

Checkpoints operate during meiosis to ensure the completion of DNA synthesis and programmed recombination before the initiation of meiotic divisions. Studies in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe suggest that the meiotic response to DNA damage due to a failed replication checkpoint response differs substantially from the vegetative response, and may be influenced by the presence of homologous chromosomes. The checkpoint responses to DNA damage during fission yeast meiosis are not well characterized. Here we report that DNA damage induced during meiotic S-phase does not activate checkpoint arrest. We also find that in wild-type cells, markers for DNA breaks can persist at least to the first meiotic division. We also observe increased spontaneous S-phase damage in checkpoint mutants, which is repaired by recombination without activating checkpoint arrest. Our results suggest that fission yeast meiosis is exceptionally tolerant of DNA damage, and that some forms of spontaneous S-phase damage can be repaired by recombination without activating checkpoint arrest.


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