Yeast
In order to keep subscribers up‐to‐date with the latest developments in their field, this current awareness service is provided by John Wiley & Sons and contains newly‐published material on yeasts. Each bibliography is divided into 10 sections. 1 Reviews; 2 General; 3 Biochemistry; 4 Biotechnology; 5 Cell Biology; 6 Gene Expression; 7 Genetics; 8 Physiology; 9 Medical Mycology; 10 Recombinant...
Mitotic catastrophe provokes endopolyploidy, giant cell formation and, eventually, delayed cell death. Mitotic catastrophe is induced by defective cell cycle checkpoints and by some anticancer drugs, ionizing radiation and microtubule‐destabilizing agents. RAD2 is a yeast homologue of XPG, which is a human endonuclease involved in nucleotide excision repair. Here we show that Rad2p overexpression...
The growth of yeast cells in batches in glucose‐based media is a standard condition in most yeast laboratories. Most gene expression experiments are done by taking this condition as a reference. Presumably, cells are in a stable physiological condition that can be easily reproduced in other laboratories. With this assumption, however, it is necessary to consider that the average amount of the mRNAs...
Pseudozyma antarctica produces large amounts of the glycolipid biosurfactants known as mannosylerythritol lipids (MEL), which show not only excellent surface‐active properties but also versatile biochemical actions. A gene homologous with a mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier was dominantly expressed in P. antarctica under MEL‐producing conditions on the basis of previous gene expression analysis. The gene...
Here we present a set of resources (bacterial expression plasmids and antibodies) for the interrogation of proteins involved in yeast MAPK signalling. We constructed bacterial protein expression plasmids for 25 proteins involved in MAPK signalling in budding yeast. From these constructs we expressed and purified proteins and generated rabbit polyclonal antibodies against 13 proteins in the pheromone...
The pathogenic fungus Candida albicans secretes a considerable number of hydrolases and other proteins. In‐depth studies of the C. albicans secretome could thus provide new candidates for diagnostic markers and vaccine development. We compared various growth conditions differing in pH, temperature and the presence of the hyphal inducer N‐acetylglucosamine. The polypeptide content of the growth media...
The cell division programme included in each cell specifies that, after anaphase, cytokinesis completes the process of producing two cells. With the exception of plant cells, whose peculiarities are out of the scope of this review, in all eukaryotic cells the cleavage furrow that forms late in anaphase bisects the mitotic spindle. Ingression of the furrow and the consequent synthesis of the new membrane...
Although the chemical composition of many fungal cell walls is known, the spatial organization and interactions of the individual macromolecules remain mysterious. In this context, single‐cell and single‐molecule atomic force microscopy techniques offer new opportunities for probing the surface of fungal cells down to molecular resolution. Recent breakthroughs include the visualization of the structural...
The integrity of the fungal cell wall is ensured by a signal transduction pathway, the so‐called CWI pathway, which has best been studied in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In this context, environmental stress and other perturbations at the cell surface are detected by a small set of plasma membrane‐spanning sensors, viz. Wsc1, Wsc2, Wsc3, Mid2 and Mtl1. This review covers the recent advances...
The cell wall is an essential cellular component for the survival of fungi. The cell wall of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae undergoes remodelling during the cell cycle. Evidence is accumulating that there are regulatory mechanisms that link cell wall remodelling and cell cycle progression. Here, we review one such mechanism, known as the ‘cell wall integrity checkpoint’, which functions...
Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been widely used as a model eukaryotic organism to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that operate upon activation of signalling pathways. For over two decades, many clues to the regulation of mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways have derived from basic research in yeast. Here we review aspects of MAPK pathway fine‐tuning, such as the functional implication...
In order to keep subscribers up‐to‐date with the latest developments in their field, this current awareness service is provided by John Wiley & Sons and contains newly‐published material on yeasts. Each bibliography is divided into 10 sections. 1 Reviews; 2 General; 3 Biochemistry; 4 Biotechnology; 5 Cell Biology; 6 Gene Expression; 7 Genetics; 8 Physiology; 9 Medical Mycology; 10 Recombinant...
The Saccharomyces cerevisiae protein Knr4 is composed of a globular central core flanked by two natively disordered regions. Although the central part of the protein holds most of its biological function, the N‐terminal domain (amino acids 1–80) is essential in the absence of a functional CWI pathway. We show that this specific protein domain is required for the proper cellular localization of Knr4...
The concept of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as an emerging opportunistic pathogen is relatively new and it is due to an increasing number of human infections during the past 20 years. There are still few studies addressing the mechanisms of infection of this yeast species. Moreover, little is known about how S. cerevisiae cells sense and respond to the harsh conditions imposed by the host, and whether...
α1,6‐linked mannans are an essential component of the Aspergillus fumigatus galactomannan, which is either GPI‐anchored to the plasma membrane or covalently bound to the polysaccharide core of the cell wall. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the OCH1 gene encodes an α1,6‐mannosyltransferase that initiates the synthesis of the α1,6 linked‐mannan. In the A. fumigatus genome, four orthologous genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae ScOCH1...
Many of the genes and enzymes critical for assembly and biogenesis of yeast cell walls remain unidentified or poorly characterized. Therefore, we designed a high throughput genomic screen for defects in anchoring of GPI‐cell wall proteins (GPI‐CWPs), based on quantification of a secreted GFP‐Sag1p fusion protein. Saccharomyces cerevisiae diploid deletion strains were transformed with a plasmid expressing...
Two temperature‐sensitive Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants, sec59‐1 and dpm1‐6, impaired, respectively, in dolichol kinase (Sec59p) and dolichyl phosphate mannose (DolPMan) synthase (Dpm1p), have an aberrant cell wall structure and composition. We tested their sensitivity to four classes of antifungal drugs used in clinical practice: 5‐fluorocytosine, amphotericin B, caspofungin and itraconasole....
Yeast cells are surrounded by a thick cell wall, the composition and structure of which have been characterized by biochemical and genetic methods. In this study, we used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to visualize the cell surface topography and to determine cell wall nanomechanical properties of yeast mutants defective in cell wall architecture. While all mutants investigated showed some alteration...
Proteolytic degradation during protein processing in yeast is usually prevented by the addition of protease inhibitors or strict cooling of the samples. In this report we show that, while these precautions are sufficient for some strains, they are clearly insufficient for others. Specifically, we show that the stability of some proteins, such as Slt2p or Chs4p, but not others, is severely compromised...