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Dynamic studies of scaffold-dependent mating pathway in yeast.

ABSTRACT: The mating pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of the best understood signal transduction pathways in eukaryotes. It transmits the mating signal from plasma membrane into the nucleus through the G-protein coupled receptor and the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade. According to current understanding of the mating pathway, we construct a system of ordinary differential equations to describe the process. Our model is consistent with a wide range of experiments, indicating that it captures some main characteristics of the signal transduction along the pathway. Investigation with the model reveals that the shuttling of the scaffold protein and the dephosphorylation of kinases involved in the MAPK cascade cooperate to regulate the response upon pheromone induction and to help preserve the fidelity of the mating signaling. We explored factors affecting the dose-response curves of this pathway and found that both negative feedback and concentrations of the proteins involved in the MAPK cascade play crucial roles. Contrary to some other MAPK systems where signaling sensitivity is being amplified successively along the cascade, here the mating signal is transmitted through the cascade in an almost linear fashion.

SUBMITTER: Shao D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1635675 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dynamic studies of scaffold-dependent mating pathway in yeast.

Shao Danying D Zheng Wen W Qiu Wenjun W Ouyang Qi Q Tang Chao C

Biophysical journal 20060915 11

The mating pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of the best understood signal transduction pathways in eukaryotes. It transmits the mating signal from plasma membrane into the nucleus through the G-protein coupled receptor and the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade. According to current understanding of the mating pathway, we construct a system of ordinary differential equations to describe the process. Our model is consistent with a wide range of experiments, indicating that ...[more]

PMID: 16980360

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Project description:While sexual reproduction is pervasive in eukaryotic cells, the strategies employed by fungal species to achieve and complete sexual cycles is highly diverse and complex. Many fungi, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe, are homothallic (able to mate with their own mitotic descendants) because of homothallic switching (HO) endonuclease-mediated mating-type switching. Under laboratory conditions, the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans can undergo both heterothallic and homothallic (opposite- and same-sex) mating. However, both mating modes require the presence of cells with two opposite mating types (MTLa/a and α/α) in close proximity. Given the predominant clonal feature of this yeast in the human host, both opposite- and same-sex mating would be rare in nature. In this study, we report that glucose starvation and oxidative stress, common environmental stresses encountered by the pathogen, induce the development of mating projections and efficiently permit same-sex mating in C. albicans with an "a" mating type (MTLa/a). This induction bypasses the requirement for the presence of cells with an opposite mating type and allows efficient sexual mating between cells derived from a single progenitor. Glucose starvation causes an increase in intracellular oxidative species, overwhelming the Heat Shock transcription Factor 1 (Hsf1)- and Heat shock protein (Hsp)90-mediated stress-response pathway. We further demonstrate that Candida TransActivating protein 4 (Cta4) and Cell Wall Transcription factor 1 (Cwt1), downstream effectors of the Hsf1-Hsp90 pathway, regulate same-sex mating in C. albicans through the transcriptional control of the master regulator of a-type mating, MTLa2, and the pheromone precursor-encoding gene Mating α factor precursor (MFα). Our results suggest that mating could occur much more frequently in nature than was originally appreciated and that same-sex mating could be an important mode of sexual reproduction in C. albicans.

Dataset Information

Dynamic studies of scaffold-dependent mating pathway in yeast.

Publications

Dynamic studies of scaffold-dependent mating pathway in yeast.

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