Dataset Information

Control of expression noise, fitness and gene aggregation by a component of the yeast pheromone response pathway

ABSTRACT: Cellular processes are subject to variability, or noise, yet mechanisms that promote cell-to-cell uniformity are poorly understood. We have identified such a role for Dig1, a redundant (with Dig2) MAPK-responsive inhibitor of the S. cerevisiae mating pathway transcription factor Ste12. Cells lacking Dig1, but not Dig2, exhibited increased variability in outputs of the mating pathway. dig1∆ mutants also displayed a Ste12-dependent defect in growth in the absence of mating pheromone and a quantitative defect in the process of mating, itself. In cells expressing two reporter genes driven by the same promoter, both intrinsic/uncorrelated and extrinsic/correlated noise were found to increase. Remarkably, the extrinsic noise phenotype in cells lacking Dig1 correlates with the aggregation of target genes: we observed subnuclear foci of Ste12 specifically in dig1∆ cells and, using a newly-developed method to immunoprecipitate a single locus from crosslinked chromatin, we found that Dig1 inhibits long-range interactions between Ste12 target genes in vivo. Dig1 may shield binding surfaces on Ste12 whose unmasking leads to inappropriate gene associations and increased gene expression noise. These studies reveal how investigations of variability modulation mechanisms can yield unexpected biological insights.

ORGANISM(S): Saccharomyces cerevisiae

PROVIDER: GSE17583 | GEO | 2010/12/15

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA118689

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Candida albicans can stochastically switch between two phenotypes, white and opaque. Opaque cells are the sexually competent form of C. albicans and therefore undergo efficient polarized growth and mating in the presence of pheromone. In contrast, white cells cannot mate, but are induced - under a specialized set of conditions - to form biofilms in response to pheromone. In this work, we compare the genetic regulation of such "pheromone-stimulated" biofilms with that of "conventional" C. albicans biofilms. In particular, we examined a network of six transcriptional regulators (Bcr1, Brg1, Efg1, Tec1, Ndt80, and Rob1) that mediate conventional biofilm formation for their potential roles in pheromone-stimulated biofilm formation. We show that four of the six transcription factors (Bcr1, Brg1, Rob1, and Tec1) promote formation of both conventional and pheromone-stimulated biofilms, indicating they play general roles in cell cohesion and biofilm development. In addition, we identify the master transcriptional regulator of pheromone-stimulated biofilms as C. albicans Cph1, ortholog of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ste12. Cph1 regulates mating in C. albicans opaque cells, and here we show that Cph1 is also essential for pheromone-stimulated biofilm formation in white cells. In contrast, Cph1 is dispensable for the formation of conventional biofilms. The regulation of pheromone- stimulated biofilm formation was further investigated by transcriptional profiling and genetic analyses. These studies identified 206 genes that are induced by pheromone signaling during biofilm formation. One of these genes, HGC1, is shown to be required for both conventional and pheromone-stimulated biofilm formation. Taken together, these observations compare and contrast the regulation of conventional and pheromone-stimulated biofilm formation in C. albicans, and demonstrate that Cph1 is required for the latter, but not the former. 4 condition experiment: white and opaque cells in planktonic and pheromone-induced biofilm conditions with and without alpha pheromone. WT strain (P37005), the tec1 mutant strain and the cph1 mutant strain

Dataset Information

Control of expression noise, fitness and gene aggregation by a component of the yeast pheromone response pathway

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure