Stochastic phenotypic switching arises in response to directional selection in experimentally evolved multicellular yeast.

ABSTRACT: Phenotypic diversity in genetically homogenous populations has increasingly been recognized as potentially adaptive even under constant conditions. The origins of adaptive differentiation during major evolutionary transitions, such as the evolution of multicellularity and eusociality, are generally thought to arise from pre-existing stochastic and plastic phenotypic heterogeneity. Here, we characterize phenotypic diversity in isogenic populations of experimentally-evolved multicellular yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Our results show support for a bistable system maintained across different growth conditions, consisting of two distinct morphotypes: large multicellular clusters and smaller ancestral-like clusters consisting of one to a few cells. This bistable system arises as a pleiotropi

SUBMITTER: Baselga-Cervera B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12855194 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature