Project description:Cells respond to stress and starvation by adjusting their growth rate and enacting stress defense programs. In eukaryotes this involves inactivation of TORC1, which in turn triggers downregulation of ribosome and protein synthesis genes and upregulation of stress response genes. Here we report that the highly conserved inositol pyrophosphate second messengers (including 1-PP-IP5, 5-PP-IP4, and 5-PP-IP5) are also critical regulators of cell growth and the general stress response, acting in parallel to the TORC1 pathway to control the activity of the class I HDAC Rpd3L. In fact, yeast cells that cannot synthesize any of the PP-IPs mount little to no transcriptional response in osmotic, heat, or oxidative stress. Furthermore, PP-IP dependent regulation of Rpd3L occurs independently of the role individual PP-IPs (such as 5-PP-IP5) play in activating specialized stress/starvation response pathways. Thus, the PP-IP second messengers simultaneously activate and tune the global response to stress and starvation signals. 2-condition experiments. Includes the responses of wild-type (ACY 044) and mutant yeast strains (all are W303 background) to log growth and stress conditions. This series of microarrays were performed on null mutants of various genes in the inositol pyrophosphate synthesis pathway, including several members of the Rpd3L histone deacetylase complex. All mutants were made in W303 strain, MatA yeast, using standard techniques (homologous recombination). Several stress conditions were tested, including heat-shock, oxidative (H2O2), and osmotic stress (0.375M KCl). Cells in mid-log growth were subjected to stress for 20 minutes. In one instance the TOR inhibitor rapamycin was added to determine whether PP-IPs act above/at or below TORC1 in activating the ESR. Taken together, these microarrays show the role of the inositol pyrophosphate synthesis pathway in activating the ESR in stress.
Project description:Timely signaling pathways activation allows cells to survive diverse environmental stress conditions. Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are a highly conserved class of signaling molecules in eukaryotes with essential functions in cellular responses to stress. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the role of MAPK Hog1 as a master regulator of the coordinated response to osmotic stress is well understood. However, recent findings suggest that the role of Hog1 may extend beyond canonical osmoadaptation. This study investigates the role of Hog1 in mediating transcriptional responses to acute oxidative and ethanol stress. By harnessing the natural variation present in wild strains of S. cerevisiae, we use gene knockouts, comparative transcriptomics, and survival assays to determine Hog1’s involvement in stress responses beyond osmoadaptation. Our findings demonstrate that Hog1 mediates transcriptional reprogramming for non-osmotic stress response in a strain-dependent manner. Osmospecificity of Hog1 activity was identified in the DBY8268 laboratory strain, while differential gene expression was observed in HOG1 knockouts of all wild strains tested under both oxidative and ethanol stress. Further, our data indicate that the function of Hog1 in the response to non-osmotic stress is distinct from the canonical response, with effects ranging from altered ribosomal protein expression dynamics to altered environmental stress response (ESR) activity. Differences in expression correlate with fitness defects of hog1∆ mutants. These results suggest a generalized role of the Hog1 MAPK in S. cerevisiae, consistent with an evolutionarily generalized function for this kinase, underscoring the importance of genomic diversity for elucidating stress signalling dynamics in yeast.
Project description:Prolonged cell cycle arrests occur naturally in differentiated cells and in response to various stresses such as nutrient deprivation or treatment with chemotherapeutic agents. Whether and how cells survive prolonged cell cycle arrests is not clear. Here, we used S. cerevisiae to compare physiological cell cycle arrests and genetically induced arrests in G1-, meta- and anaphase. Prolonged cell cycle arrest led to growth attenuation in all studied conditions, coincided with activation of the Environmental Stress Response (ESR) and with a reduced ribosome content as determined by whole ribosome purification and TMT mass spectrometry. Suppression of the ESR through hyperactivation of the Ras/PKA pathway reduced cell viability during prolonged arrests, demonstrating a cytoprotective role of the ESR. Attenuation of cell growth and activation of stress induced signaling pathways also occur in arrested human cell lines, raising the possibility that the response to prolonged cell cycle arrest is conserved.
Project description:Cells respond to stress and starvation by adjusting their growth rate and enacting stress defense programs. In eukaryotes this involves inactivation of TORC1, which in turn triggers downregulation of ribosome and protein synthesis genes and upregulation of stress response genes. Here we report that the highly conserved inositol pyrophosphate second messengers (including 1-PP-IP5, 5-PP-IP4, and 5-PP-IP5) are also critical regulators of cell growth and the general stress response, acting in parallel to the TORC1 pathway to control the activity of the class I HDAC Rpd3L. In fact, yeast cells that cannot synthesize any of the PP-IPs mount little to no transcriptional response in osmotic, heat, or oxidative stress. Furthermore, PP-IP dependent regulation of Rpd3L occurs independently of the role individual PP-IPs (such as 5-PP-IP5) play in activating specialized stress/starvation response pathways. Thus, the PP-IP second messengers simultaneously activate and tune the global response to stress and starvation signals.