scholarly journals Isolation of protein glycosylation mutants in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

1995 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 485-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
K M Huang ◽  
M D Snider

We have isolated mutants in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe that are defective in protein glycosylation. A collection of osmotically sensitive mutants was prepared and screened for glycosylation defects using lectin staining as an assay. Mutants singly defective in four glycoprotein synthesis genes (gps1-4) were isolated, all of which bind less galactose-specific lectin. Acid phosphatase and other glycoproteins from the gps mutants have increased electrophoretic mobility, suggesting that these mutants make glycans of reduced size. N-linked glycan analysis revealed that terminal oligosaccharide modification is defective in the gps1 and gps2 mutants. Both mutants synthesize the Man9GlcNAc2 core glycan but have reduced amounts of larger structures. Modified core glycans from gps1 cells have normal amounts of galactose (Gal) residues, but reduced amounts of Man, consistent with a defect in a Golgi mannosyltransferase in this mutant. In contrast, N-linked oligosaccharides from gps2 mutants have much less Gal than wild type, because of reduced levels of the Gal donor, UDP-Gal. This reduction is caused by decreased activity of UDP-glucose 4-epimerase, which synthesizes UDP-Gal. Neither the gps1 or gps2 mutations are lethal, although the cells grow at reduced rates. These findings suggest that S. pombe cells can survive with incompletely glycosylated cell wall glycoproteins. In particular, these results suggest that Gal, which comprises approximately 30% by weight of cell wall glycoprotein glycans, is not crucial for cell growth or survival.

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 790-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Luo ◽  
Yasuhiro Matsuo ◽  
Galina Gulis ◽  
Haylee Hinz ◽  
Jana Patton-Vogt ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT To investigate the contributions of phosphatidylethanolamine to the growth and morphogenesis of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we have characterized three predicted genes in this organism, designated psd1, psd2, and psd3, encoding phosphatidylserine decarboxylases, which catalyze the conversion of phosphatidylserine to phosphatidylethanolamine in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms. S. pombe mutants carrying deletions in any one or two psd genes are viable in complex rich medium and synthetic defined minimal medium. However, mutants carrying deletions in all three psd genes (psd1-3Δ mutants) grow slowly in rich medium and are inviable in minimal medium, indicating that the psd1 to psd3 gene products share overlapping essential cellular functions. Supplementation of growth media with ethanolamine, which can be converted to phosphatidylethanolamine by the Kennedy pathway, restores growth to psd1-3Δ cells in minimal medium, indicating that phosphatidylethanolamine is essential for S. pombe cell growth. psd1-3Δ cells produce lower levels of phosphatidylethanolamine than wild-type cells, even in medium supplemented with ethanolamine, indicating that the Kennedy pathway can only partially compensate for the loss of phosphatidylserine decarboxylase activity in S. pombe. psd1-3Δ cells appear morphologically indistinguishable from wild-type S. pombe cells in medium supplemented with ethanolamine, but when cultured in nonsupplemented medium, they produce high frequencies of abnormally shaped cells as well as cells exhibiting severe septation defects, including multiple, mispositioned, deformed, and misoriented septa. Our results demonstrate that phosphatidylethanolamine is essential for cell growth and for normal cytokinesis and cellular morphogenesis in S. pombe, and they illustrate the usefulness of this model eukaryote for investigating potentially conserved biological and molecular functions of phosphatidylethanolamine.


1999 ◽  
Vol 181 (4) ◽  
pp. 1356-1359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naotaka Tanaka ◽  
Atsuro Awai ◽  
M. Shah Alam Bhuiyan ◽  
Kiyotaka Fujita ◽  
Hiroshi Fukui ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We have isolated fission yeast mutants that constitutively flocculate upon growth in liquid media. One of these mutants, thegsf1 mutant, was found to cause dominant, nonsexual, and calcium-dependent aggregation of cells into flocs. Its flocculation was inhibited by the addition of galactose but was not affected by the addition of mannose or glucose, unlike Saccharomyces cerevisiae FLO mutants. The gsf1 mutant coflocculated withSchizosaccharomyces pombe wild-type cells, while no coflocculation was found with galactose-deficient (gms1Δ) cells. Moreover, flocculation of the gsf1 mutant was also inhibited by addition of cell wall galactomannan from wild-type cells but not from gms1Δ cells. These results suggested that galactose residues in the cell wall glycoproteins may be receptors ofgsf1-mediated flocculation, and therefore cell surface galactosylation is required for nonsexual flocculation in S. pombe.


2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 1124-1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos G. Cortés ◽  
Reiko Katoh-Fukui ◽  
Kanako Moto ◽  
Juan Carlos Ribas ◽  
Junpei Ishiguro

ABSTRACT The cps5-138 fission yeast mutant shows an abnormal lemon-like morphology at 28°C in minimal medium and a lethal thermosensitive phenotype at 37°C. Cell growth is completely inhibited at 28°C in a Ca2+-free medium, in which the wild type is capable of growing normally. Under these conditions, actin patches become randomly distributed throughout the cell, and defects in septum formation and subsequent cytokinesis appear. The mutant cell is hypersensitive to the cell wall-digesting enzymatic complex Novozym234 even under permissive conditions. The gene SPBC31E1.02c, which complements all the mutant phenotypes described above, was cloned and codes for the Ca2+-ATPase homologue Pmr1p. The gene is not essential under optimal growth conditions but is required under conditions of low Ca2+ (<0.1 mM) or high temperature (>35°C). The green fluorescent protein-tagged Cps5 proteins, which are expressed under physiological conditions (an integrated single copy with its own promoter in the cps5Δ strain), display a localization pattern typical of endoplasmic reticulum proteins. Biochemical analyses show that 1,3-β-d-glucan synthase activity in the mutant is decreased to nearly half that of the wild type and that the mutant cell wall contains no detectable galactomannan when the cells are exposed to a Ca2+-free medium. The mutant acid phosphatase has an increased electrophoretic mobility, suggesting that incomplete protein glycosylation takes place in the mutant cells. These results indicate that S. pombe Pmr1p is essential for the maintenance of cell wall integrity and cytokinesis, possibly by allowing protein glycosylation and the polarized actin distribution to take place normally. Disruption and complementation analyses suggest that Pmr1p shares its function with a vacuolar Ca2+-ATPase homologue, Pmc1p (SPAPB2B4.04c), to prevent lethal activation of calcineurin for cell growth.


Microbiology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 160 (6) ◽  
pp. 1063-1074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Sipiczki ◽  
Anita Balazs ◽  
Aniko Monus ◽  
Laszlo Papp ◽  
Anna Horvath ◽  
...  

The post-cytokinetic separation of cells in cell-walled organisms involves enzymic processes that degrade a specific layer of the division septum and the region of the mother cell wall that edges the septum. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the 1,3-α-glucanase Agn1p, originally identified as a mutanase-like glycoside hydrolase family 71 (GH71) enzyme, dissolves the mother cell wall around the septum edge. Our search in the genomes of completely sequenced fungi identified GH71 hydrolases in Basidiomycota, Taphrinomycotina and Pezizomycotina, but not in Saccharomycotina. The most likely Agn1p orthologues in Pezizomycotina species are not mutanases having mutanase-binding domains, but experimentally non-characterized hypothetical proteins that have no carbohydrate-binding domains. The analysis of the GH71 domains corroborated the phylogenetic relationships of the Schizosaccharomyces species determined by previous studies, but suggested a closer relationship to the Basidiomycota proteins than to the Ascomycota proteins. In the Schizosaccharomyces genus, the Agn1p proteins are structurally conserved: their GH71 domains are flanked by N-terminal secretion signals and C-terminal sequences containing the conserved block YNFNAY/HTG. The inactivation of the agn1Sj gene in Schizosaccharomyces japonicus, the only true dimorphic member of the genus, caused a severe cell-separation defect in its yeast phase, but had no effect on the hyphal growth and yeast-to-mycelium transition. It did not affect the mycelium-to-yeast transition either, only delaying the separation of the yeast cells arising from the fragmenting hyphae. The heterologous expression of agn1Sj partially rescued the separation defect of the agn1Δ cells of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The results presented indicate that the fission yeast Agn1p 1,3-α-glucanases of Schizosaccharomyces japonicus and Schizosaccharomyces pombe share conserved functions in the yeast phase.


Genetics ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-449
Author(s):  
A M Schweingruber ◽  
H Fankhauser ◽  
J Dlugonski ◽  
C Steinmann-Loss ◽  
M E Schweingruber

Abstract Mutants from Schizosaccharomyces pombe deficient in the regulation of thiamine-repressible acid phosphatase have been isolated. Mutants expressing derepressed levels of the enzyme in the presence and absence of thiamine map in three genes, tnr1, tnr2 and tnr3. mRNA levels of the pho4 gene (coding for thiamine repressible acid phosphatase) and another thiamine-regulatable gene, thi3 (coding for a thiamine biosynthetic enzyme and corresponding to nmt1) are constitutively synthesized in the mutants. The mutants also exhibit constitutive thiamine transport which is thiamine repressible in wild type. The tnr3 mutants reveal a 10-20-fold higher intracellular thiamine level than tnr1 and tnr2 mutants and wild type. Mutants expressing repressed levels of thiamine-repressible acid phosphatase map in gene thi1. No or little amounts of pho4- and nmt1-specific mRNA can be detected. These mutants are impaired in thiamine uptake and are thiamine auxotrophic due to the inability to synthesize the thiazole moiety of the thiamine molecule. All tested tnr and thi1 alleles are recessive, and thi1 mutations are epistatic over tnr mutations. We assume that the thi1 and tnr genes are involved in thiamine-mediated transcription control.


1992 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1405-1411
Author(s):  
J R Bischoff ◽  
D Casso ◽  
D Beach

Overexpression of wild-type p53 in mammalian cells blocks growth. We show here that the overexpression of wild-type human p53 in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe also blocks growth, whereas the overexpression of mutant forms of p53 does not. The p53 polypeptide is located in the nucleus and is phosphorylated at both the cdc2 site and the casein kinase II site in S. pombe. A new dominant mutation of p53, resulting in the change of a cysteine to an arginine at amino acid residue 141, was identified. The results presented here demonstrate that S. pombe could provide a simple system for studying the mechanism of action of human p53.


1990 ◽  
Vol 110 (5) ◽  
pp. 1617-1621 ◽  
Author(s):  
I M Hagan ◽  
P N Riddle ◽  
J S Hyams

We have used a new cinemicroscopy technique in combination with antitubulin immunofluorescence microscopy to investigate the timing of mitotic events in cells of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe having lengths at division between 7 and 60 microns. Wild-type fission yeast cells divide at a length of 14 microns. Separation of daughter nuclei (anaphase B) proceeds at a rate of 1.6 +/- 0.2 microns min-1, until the spindle extends the length of the cell. Coincident with spindle depolymerization, the nuclei reverse direction and take up positions that will become the center of the two daughter cells. This post-mitotic nuclear migration occurs at a rate of 1.4 +/- 0.5 microns-1. In cells in which the weel+ gene is overexpressed fivefold and that have an average length at mitosis of 28 microns, the rate of nuclear separation was only slightly reduced but, as spindles in these cells measure 20-22 microns, the duration of anaphase B was extended by approximately 40%. By contrast, in the mutant weel.50, which divides at 7 microns, both the rate and duration of anaphase B were indistinguishable from wild type. Nuclei reach the ends of these cells earlier but remain there until a point corresponding to the time of postmitotic nuclear migration in wild type. Thus, the events of mitosis can be extended but not abbreviated. These results are discussed in terms of a mitotic termination control that monitors many different events, one of which is spindle elongation.


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