Project description:Cell growth rate is regulated in response to resource availability including the abundance, and molecular form, of essential nutrients. In the model eukaryotic cell, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast), the molecular form of environmental nitrogen impacts both cell growth rate and mRNA expression. Disentangling causal relationships between nitrogen availability, cell growth rate and differential gene expression poses a considerable challenge. Using experimental control of cell growth rate using chemostats, we studied the effect of variation in environmental nitrogen on differential gene expression. We find that the primary determinant of nitrogen-regulated gene expression is nitrogen abundance whereas variation in nitrogen source affects the expression of only a small number of transcripts with highly specialized functions. To study the dynamics of nitrogen-responsive gene expression we perturbed steady-state nitrogen-limited chemostat cultures by addition of either proline or glutamine. Addition of either proline or glutamine to cells growing in nitrogen-limited chemostats results in repression of the nitrogen catabolite repression (NCR) regulon consistent with nitrogen abundance, and not nitrogen source, being the primary determinant of nitrogen-regulated gene expression. We find that a transition from nitrogen-limited to nitrogen-replete conditions is accompanied by rapid induction of transcripts required for protein translation. We identified a reciprocal relationship between specific regulons required for protein translation (RP and RiBi) and the NCR regulon. Using mathematical modeling we find evidence that cells adopt a metabolically inefficient growth mode during this transition. By means of high resolution time series analysis we find evidence that rapid, and potentially accelerated, mRNA degradation plays an important role in remodeling gene expression programs in response to change in environmental nitrogen. We propose that the evolutionarily conserved TORC1 signaling pathway orchestrates the balance between protein translation and assimilation of nitrogen sources at the transcriptional level to optimize rates of cell proliferation.

Project description:Cell growth rate is regulated in response to resource availability including the abundance, and molecular form, of essential nutrients. In the model eukaryotic cell, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast), the molecular form of environmental nitrogen impacts both cell growth rate and mRNA expression. Disentangling causal relationships between nitrogen availability, cell growth rate and differential gene expression poses a considerable challenge. Using experimental control of cell growth rate using chemostats, we studied the effect of variation in environmental nitrogen on differential gene expression. We find that the primary determinant of nitrogen-regulated gene expression is nitrogen abundance whereas variation in nitrogen source affects the expression of only a small number of transcripts with highly specialized functions. To study the dynamics of nitrogen-responsive gene expression we perturbed steady-state nitrogen-limited chemostat cultures by addition of either proline or glutamine. Addition of either proline or glutamine to cells growing in nitrogen-limited chemostats results in repression of the nitrogen catabolite repression (NCR) regulon consistent with nitrogen abundance, and not nitrogen source, being the primary determinant of nitrogen-regulated gene expression. We find that a transition from nitrogen-limited to nitrogen-replete conditions is accompanied by rapid induction of transcripts required for protein translation. We identified a reciprocal relationship between specific regulons required for protein translation (RP and RiBi) and the NCR regulon. Using mathematical modeling we find evidence that cells adopt a metabolically inefficient growth mode during this transition. By means of high resolution time series analysis we find evidence that rapid, and potentially accelerated, mRNA degradation plays an important role in remodeling gene expression programs in response to change in environmental nitrogen. We propose that the evolutionarily conserved TORC1 signaling pathway orchestrates the balance between protein translation and assimilation of nitrogen sources at the transcriptional level to optimize rates of cell proliferation. A total of of 102 samples were analyzed in different nitrogen-limited conditions using chemostats in both steady-state and dynamic conditions. A common reference obtained from an ammonium-limited chemostat growing at a dilution rate of 0.12/hr was used for all two color hybridization experiments.

Project description:The irreversible decarboxylation step, which commits 2-oxo acids to the Ehrlich pathway, was initially attributed to pyruvate decarboxylase. However, the yeast genome was shown to harbour no fewer than 5 genes that show sequence similarity with thiamine-diphosphate dependent decarboxylase genes. Three of these (PDC1, PDC5 and PDC6) encode pyruvate decarboxylases { while ARO10 and THI3 represent alternative candidates for Ehrlich-pathway decarboxylases. Transcriptome analysis and decarboxylase activity measurements on an S. cerevisiae aro10 strain, a double aro10 thi3 deletion strain and a quadruple pdc1,5,6,aro10 mutant strains grown in carbonÃ¢â¬âlimited chemostat with phenylalanine as nitrogen source indicated that:; i) PDC5 is strongly upregulated in an aro10 background (Fig. 2) and also encodes a broad-substrate ÃÂ±-keto acid decarboxylase. ii) PDC5 expression depends on the presence of THI3 (Fig. 2), and; iii) in contrast to cell extracts from a strain expressing ARO10 only (pdc1,5,6, thi3), cell extract from a strain that only contains THI3 (pdc1,5,6,aro10) did not produce any ÃÂ±-keto acid decarboxylase activity . THI3 has recently been demonstrated to be involved in regulation of thiamine homeostasis in S. cerevisiae, which further suggests that its role in the Ehrlich pathway may be regulatory rather than catalytic. A systematic investigation of the catalytic properties of all five (putative) TPP-dependent decarboxylases (Aro10p, Thi3p, Pdc1p, Pdc5p, Pdc6p) is essential for a final resolution of the substrate specificity of these key enzymes in the Ehrlich pathway. Experiment Overall Design: Comparison of glucose limited chemostat cultivations with phenylalanine as sole nitrogen sources of the following strains: Experiment Overall Design: - CENPK113-7D MATa MAL2-8c SUC2 Experiment Overall Design: - CENPK555-4A MATa MAL2-8c SUC2 ydr380w delta Experiment Overall Design: - CENPK5632-3B MATalpha MAL2-8c SUC2 ydr380w delta ydl080c delta Experiment Overall Design: - CENPK609-11A MATa MAL2-8c SUC2 pdc1, 5, 6 delta ydr380w delta

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Transcriptional responses of yeast to preferred and non-preferred nitrogen sources in C-lim chemostat cultures

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