Abstract
Investigations into sexual differentiation and pheromone response in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe are complicated by the need to first starve the cells of nitrogen. Most mating-related experiments are therefore performed on non-dividing cells. Here we overcome this problem by using two mutants that bypass the nutritional requirements and respond to the M-factor mating pheromone in rich medium. The first mutant lacks the cyr1 gene which encodes adenylate cyclase and these cells contain no measurable amounts of cAMP. When M-factor is added to a growing h+ cyr1- strain it causes a transient G1 arrest of cell division, transcription of mat1-Pm, and elongation of the cells to form shmoos. The second mutant contains the temperature-sensitive pat1-114 allele. At 30 degrees C this mutant was previously shown not only to bypass the nutritional signal but also to stop growing in a state derepressed for pheromone-controlled functions. We now report that an h+ pat1-114 strain growing mitotically at 23 degrees C responds to M-factor. This shows that the pat1 protein kinase can be tuned to derepress nutritional signalling while repressing the other stages in the differentiation process.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Current Genetics |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 105-12 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| ISSN | 0172-8083 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 1994 |
Keywords
- Adenylate Cyclase
- Cell Division
- Crosses, Genetic
- G1 Phase
- Genes, Fungal
- Kinetics
- Mutagenesis
- Peptides
- Pheromones
- Schizosaccharomyces
- Time Factors
- Transcription, Genetic