Sequential alterations in the nuclear chromatin region during mitosis of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe: video fluorescence microscopy of synchronously growing wild-type and cold-sensitive cdc mutants by using a DNA-binding fluorescent probe

1981 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-287
Author(s):  
T. Toda ◽  
M. Yamamoto ◽  
M. Yanagida

Video-connected fluorescence microscopy was introduced to study the yeast nuclear chromatin region. It was defined as the nuclear area where a DNA-binding fluorescent probe 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole specifically bound and fluoresced. The 3-dimensional feature of the mitotic chromatin region was deduced by analysing the successive video images of a cell viewed at different angles. By investigating synchronous culture of the wild-type fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we found sequential structural alterations in the chromatin region during mitosis. The steps found include the compaction of the chromatin region from the regular hemispherical form, the formation of a U-shaped intermediate and the rapid segregation into 2 daughter hemispherical forms. Six cs cdc mutants, apparently blocked in mitosis, were observed by fluorescence microscopy. Under the restrictive conditions their chromatin regions exhibited either hemispherical, compact, disk-like, U-shaped or partially segregated chromatin regions. Two mutants showed anomalous nuclear locations. The results of the temperature shift-up experiments of the highly reversible KM52 and KM108 strains supported the above scheme of sequential alterations in the chromatin region.

1985 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 357-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.M. Mitchison ◽  
P. Nurse

The cylindrical cells of Schizosaccharomyces pombe grow in length by extension at the ends and not the middle. At the beginning of the cell cycle, growth is restricted to the ‘old end’, which existed in the previous cycle. Later on, the ‘new end’, formed from the septum, starts to grow at a point in the cycle that we have called NETO (‘new end take-off’). Fluorescence microscopy on cells stained with Calcofluor has been used to study NETO in size mutants, in blocked cdc mutants and with different growth temperatures and media. In wild-type cells (strain 972) NETO happens at 0.34 of the cycle with a cell length of 9.5 microns. With size mutants that are smaller at division, NETO takes place at the same size (9.0-9.5 microns) but this is not achieved until later in the cycle. Another control operates in larger size mutants since NETO occurs at the same stage of the cycle (about 0.32) as in wild type but at a larger cell size. This control is probably a requirement to have completed an event in early G2, since most cdc mutant cells blocked before this point in the cycle do not show NETO whereas most of those blocked in late G2 do show it. We conclude that NETO only happens if: (1) the cell length is greater than a critical value of 9.0-9.5 microns; and (2) the cell has traversed the first 0.3-0.35 of the cycle and passed early G2. NETO is delayed in poor media, in which cell size is also reduced. Temperature has little effect on NETO under steady-state conditions, but there is a transient delay for some hours after a temperature shift. NETO is later in another wild-type strain, 132. Time-lapse photomicrography was used to follow the rates of length growth in single cells. Wild-type cells showed two linear segments during the first 75% of the cycle. There was a rate-change point (RCP), coincident with NETO, where the rate of total length extension increased by 35%. This increase was not due simply to the start of new-end growth, since old-end growth slowed down in some cells at the RCP. cdc 11.123 is a mutant in which septation and division is blocked at 35 degrees C but nuclear division continues.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


1991 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
G J Gallo ◽  
T J Schuetz ◽  
R E Kingston

The heat shock response appears to be universal. All eucaryotes studied encode a protein, heat shock factor (HSF), that is believed to regulate transcription of heat shock genes. This protein binds to a regulatory sequence, the heat shock element, that is absolutely conserved among eucaryotes. We report here the identification of HSF in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. HSF binding was not observed in extracts from normally growing S. pombe (28 degrees C) but was detected in increasing amounts as the temperature of heat shock increased between 39 and 45 degrees C. This regulation is in contrast to that observed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in which HSF binding is detectable at both normal and heat shock temperatures. The S. pombe factor bound specifically to the heat shock element, as judged by methylation interference and DNase I protection analysis. The induction of S. pombe HSF was not inhibited by cycloheximide, suggesting that induction occurs posttranslationally, and the induced factor was shown to be phosphorylated. S. pombe HSF was purified to near homogeneity and was shown to have an apparent mobility of approximately 108 kDa. Since heat-induced DNA binding by HSF had previously been demonstrated only in metazoans, the conservation of heat-induced DNA binding by HSF among S. pombe and metazoans suggests that this mode of regulation is evolutionarily ancient.


1982 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. King ◽  
Jeremy S. Hyams

When cultures of Schizosaccharomyces pombe cdc 2.33 were shifted to 25 °C, after 5 h at the restrictive temperature of 35 °C, cells entered cycles of synchronous division as judged by the appearance of peaks in the cell plate index at 1.5, 3, and 4.75 h. The timing and ultrastructural morphology of events occurring in such synchronous cultures were examined. Most cells underwent mitosis between 10 and 50 min after the temperature shift, with a maximal value after approximately 30 min. The ultrastructure of mitosis was consistent with previous descriptions of this process in wild-type cells.


1999 ◽  
Vol 181 (4) ◽  
pp. 1356-1359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naotaka Tanaka ◽  
Atsuro Awai ◽  
M. Shah Alam Bhuiyan ◽  
Kiyotaka Fujita ◽  
Hiroshi Fukui ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We have isolated fission yeast mutants that constitutively flocculate upon growth in liquid media. One of these mutants, thegsf1 mutant, was found to cause dominant, nonsexual, and calcium-dependent aggregation of cells into flocs. Its flocculation was inhibited by the addition of galactose but was not affected by the addition of mannose or glucose, unlike Saccharomyces cerevisiae FLO mutants. The gsf1 mutant coflocculated withSchizosaccharomyces pombe wild-type cells, while no coflocculation was found with galactose-deficient (gms1Δ) cells. Moreover, flocculation of the gsf1 mutant was also inhibited by addition of cell wall galactomannan from wild-type cells but not from gms1Δ cells. These results suggested that galactose residues in the cell wall glycoproteins may be receptors ofgsf1-mediated flocculation, and therefore cell surface galactosylation is required for nonsexual flocculation in S. pombe.


1992 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1405-1411
Author(s):  
J R Bischoff ◽  
D Casso ◽  
D Beach

Overexpression of wild-type p53 in mammalian cells blocks growth. We show here that the overexpression of wild-type human p53 in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe also blocks growth, whereas the overexpression of mutant forms of p53 does not. The p53 polypeptide is located in the nucleus and is phosphorylated at both the cdc2 site and the casein kinase II site in S. pombe. A new dominant mutation of p53, resulting in the change of a cysteine to an arginine at amino acid residue 141, was identified. The results presented here demonstrate that S. pombe could provide a simple system for studying the mechanism of action of human p53.


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.


2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 790-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Luo ◽  
Yasuhiro Matsuo ◽  
Galina Gulis ◽  
Haylee Hinz ◽  
Jana Patton-Vogt ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT To investigate the contributions of phosphatidylethanolamine to the growth and morphogenesis of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we have characterized three predicted genes in this organism, designated psd1, psd2, and psd3, encoding phosphatidylserine decarboxylases, which catalyze the conversion of phosphatidylserine to phosphatidylethanolamine in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms. S. pombe mutants carrying deletions in any one or two psd genes are viable in complex rich medium and synthetic defined minimal medium. However, mutants carrying deletions in all three psd genes (psd1-3Δ mutants) grow slowly in rich medium and are inviable in minimal medium, indicating that the psd1 to psd3 gene products share overlapping essential cellular functions. Supplementation of growth media with ethanolamine, which can be converted to phosphatidylethanolamine by the Kennedy pathway, restores growth to psd1-3Δ cells in minimal medium, indicating that phosphatidylethanolamine is essential for S. pombe cell growth. psd1-3Δ cells produce lower levels of phosphatidylethanolamine than wild-type cells, even in medium supplemented with ethanolamine, indicating that the Kennedy pathway can only partially compensate for the loss of phosphatidylserine decarboxylase activity in S. pombe. psd1-3Δ cells appear morphologically indistinguishable from wild-type S. pombe cells in medium supplemented with ethanolamine, but when cultured in nonsupplemented medium, they produce high frequencies of abnormally shaped cells as well as cells exhibiting severe septation defects, including multiple, mispositioned, deformed, and misoriented septa. Our results demonstrate that phosphatidylethanolamine is essential for cell growth and for normal cytokinesis and cellular morphogenesis in S. pombe, and they illustrate the usefulness of this model eukaryote for investigating potentially conserved biological and molecular functions of phosphatidylethanolamine.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 1332
Author(s):  
Natalia Yagüe ◽  
Laura Gómez-Delgado ◽  
M. Ángeles Curto ◽  
Vanessa S. D. Carvalho ◽  
M. Belén Moreno ◽  
...  

Fission yeast contains three essential β(1,3)-D-glucan synthases (GSs), Bgs1, Bgs3, and Bgs4, with non-overlapping roles in cell integrity and morphogenesis. Only the bgs4+ mutants pbr1-8 and pbr1-6 exhibit resistance to GS inhibitors, even in the presence of the wild-type (WT) sequences of bgs1+ and bgs3+. Thus, Bgs1 and Bgs3 functions seem to be unaffected by those GS inhibitors. To learn more about echinocandins’ mechanism of action and resistance, cytokinesis progression and cell death were examined by time-lapse fluorescence microscopy in WT and pbr1-8 cells at the start of treatment with sublethal and lethal concentrations of anidulafungin, caspofungin, and micafungin. In WT, sublethal concentrations of the three drugs caused abundant cell death that was either suppressed (anidulafungin and micafungin) or greatly reduced (caspofungin) in pbr1-8 cells. Interestingly, the lethal concentrations induced differential phenotypes depending on the echinocandin used. Anidulafungin and caspofungin were mostly fungistatic, heavily impairing cytokinesis progression in both WT and pbr1-8. As with sublethal concentrations, lethal concentrations of micafungin were primarily fungicidal in WT cells, causing cell lysis without impairing cytokinesis. The lytic phenotype was suppressed again in pbr1-8 cells. Our results suggest that micafungin always exerts its fungicidal effect by solely inhibiting Bgs4. In contrast, lethal concentrations of anidulafungin and caspofungin cause an early cytokinesis arrest, probably by the combined inhibition of several GSs.


1988 ◽  
Vol 34 (12) ◽  
pp. 1338-1343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hisao Miyata ◽  
Machiko Miyata ◽  
Byron F. Johnson

The growth patterns of individual cells of the fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe wild-type cells, strain 972 h−; cells exposed to hydroxyurea; and cdc mutants, 11-123, 2-33) were investigated by time-lapse photomicrography. Wild-type cells showed one, two, or three linear-growth segments followed by a constant-length stage. Cells with two segments were most frequent. Hydroxyurea cells that divided as oversized cells (about three times the birth length) had three linear-growth segments in a cycle. Mutant cdc11-123 cells did not divide but had a constant-length stage separating the cycles; both the first and second cycles consisted of two linear-growth segments, and cells were oversized at the second constant-length stage (about 3.5 times the birth length). Elongating cdc2-33 cells that did not divide and were oversized (about five times the birth length) while under observation, showed four linear-growth segments. Cells of all strains showed 30 to 40% increase in growth rate at the rate-change point and maintained approximate exponential (pseudo-exponential) growth. We conclude that the normal growth pattern of individual fission-yeast cells is the pseudo-exponential pattern.


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