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An adaptive biomolecular condensation response is conserved across environmentally divergent species.

ABSTRACT: Cells must sense and respond to sudden maladaptive environmental changes-stresses-to survive and thrive. Across eukaryotes, stresses such as heat shock trigger conserved responses: growth arrest, a specific transcriptional response, and biomolecular condensation of protein and mRNA into structures known as stress granules under severe stress. The composition, formation mechanism, adaptive significance, and even evolutionary conservation of these condensed structures remain enigmatic. Here we provide a remarkable view into stress-triggered condensation, its evolutionary conservation and tuning, and its integration into other well-studied aspects of the stress response. Using three morphologically near-identical budding yeast species adapted to different thermal environments and diverged by up to 100 million years, we show that proteome-scale biomolecular condensation is tuned to species-specific thermal niches, closely tracking corresponding growth and transcriptional responses. In each species, poly(A)-binding protein-a core marker of stress granules-condenses in isolation at species-specific temperatures, with conserved molecular features and conformational changes modulating condensation. From the ecological to the molecular scale, our results reveal previously unappreciated levels of evolutionary selection in the eukaryotic stress response, while establishing a rich, tractable system for further inquiry.

SUBMITTER: Keyport Kik S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11009240 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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An adaptive biomolecular condensation response is conserved across environmentally divergent species.

Keyport Kik Samantha S Christopher Dana D Glauninger Hendrik H Hickernell Caitlin Wong CW Bard Jared A M JAM Lin Kyle M KM Squires Allison H AH Ford Michael M Sosnick Tobin R TR Drummond D Allan DA

Nature communications 20240411 1

Cells must sense and respond to sudden maladaptive environmental changes-stresses-to survive and thrive. Across eukaryotes, stresses such as heat shock trigger conserved responses: growth arrest, a specific transcriptional response, and biomolecular condensation of protein and mRNA into structures known as stress granules under severe stress. The composition, formation mechanism, adaptive significance, and even evolutionary conservation of these condensed structures remain enigmatic. Here we pro ...[more]

PMID: 38605014

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Project description:Cellular responses to maladaptive environmental changes—stresses—allow for organismal adaptation to diverse and dynamic conditions. Across the tree of life, cells upregulate a highly conserved transcriptional program in response to so-called proteotoxic stresses such as heat shock. Correspondingly, in eukaryotes, these stresses induce the formation of biomolecular condensates, clusters of mRNA and protein which are referred to as stress granules under severe stress. However, major questions remain about this stress-induced response. How conserved is the condensation response relative to the transcriptional response? How does it vary across environmental niches, and to what extent does it correspond with the conserved transcriptional response? To answer these fundamental questions, we studied the growth, transcriptional, and condensation heat-induced stress responses in three fungal species adapted to thrive in different thermal environments: cryophilic S. kudriavzevii, mesophilic S. cerevisiae, and thermotolerant K. marxianus. Here we show that transcriptional heat shock responses track each species’ evolved temperature range of growth. Further, orthologous proteins—including poly(A)-binding protein, Pab1, a core marker of stress granules—form condensates in vivo at temperatures systematically tuned to the temperature at which the organisms activate the transcriptional heat shock response and slow their growth. In vitro, purified Pab1 from each species condenses autonomously at niche-specific temperatures. Homologous mutations in Pab1 cause similar shifts in relative condensation temperature across species, and crucially, mutations which suppress condensation in vitro also reduce fitness during heat stress. Our findings indicate that stress-induced protein condensation is adaptive, conserved, integrated with the growth and transcriptional responses, and tuned to features of the cellular and organismal environment to initiate at niche-specific levels.

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An adaptive biomolecular condensation response is conserved across environmentally divergent species.

Publications

An adaptive biomolecular condensation response is conserved across environmentally divergent species.

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