Snowdrift game dynamics and facultative cheating in yeast.

ABSTRACT: The origin of cooperation is a central challenge to our understanding of evolution. The fact that microbial interactions can be manipulated in ways that animal interactions cannot has led to a growing interest in microbial models of cooperation and competition. For the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to grow on sucrose, the disaccharide must first be hydrolysed by the enzyme invertase. This hydrolysis reaction is performed outside the cytoplasm in the periplasmic space between the plasma membrane and the cell wall. Here we demonstrate that the vast majority ( approximately 99 per cent) of the monosaccharides created by sucrose hydrolysis diffuse away before they can be imported into the cell, serving to make invertase production and secretion a cooperative behaviour. A mutant cheate

SUBMITTER: Gore J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2888597 | biostudies-literature | 2009 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature