scholarly journals Differential expressions of essential and nonessential alpha-tubulin genes in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 2168-2178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y Adachi ◽  
T Toda ◽  
O Niwa ◽  
M Yanagida

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has two alpha-tubulin genes and one beta-tubulin gene. Gene disruption experiments showed that the alpha 1-tubulin gene (NDA2) is essential whereas the alpha 2 gene is dispensable. The alpha 2-disrupted cells missing alpha 2 transcript and alpha 2 polypeptide could grow and sporulate normally. The alpha 2 gene, however, was expressed in the wild type and the alpha 1 mutant. Alpha 2-Tubulin was distinguished as an electrophoretic band and was assembled into microtubules. The alpha 2-disrupted cells had an increased sensitivity to an antimicrotubule drug thiabendazole, and the alpha 1(cold-sensitive [cs]) alpha 2 (disrupted) cells became not only cs but also temperature sensitive. Northern blot experiments indicated that alpha 2 transcription was minor and constitutive whereas alpha 1 transcription was major and modulated, depending on the gene copy number of the alpha 2 gene. The amounts of alpha 1 and alpha 2 polypeptides estimated by beta-galactosidase activities of the lacZ-fused genes integrated on the chromosome and by intensities of the electrophoretic bands in crude tubulin fractions, however, were comparable, indicating that alpha 2 tubulin is not a minor subtype. We assume that the cells of Schizosaccharomyces pombe have no excess tubulin pool. alpha 1 mutants would then be blocked in the cell cycle because only half the amount of functional alpha-tubulin required for growth can be produced by the alpha 2 gene. On the other hand, the alpha 2-disrupted cells became viable because the synthesis of alpha 1 tubulin was increased by transcriptional or translational modulation or both. The real cause for essential alpha 1 and dispensable alpha 2 genes seems to be in their regulatory sequences instead of the coding sequences.

1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 2168-2178
Author(s):  
Y Adachi ◽  
T Toda ◽  
O Niwa ◽  
M Yanagida

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has two alpha-tubulin genes and one beta-tubulin gene. Gene disruption experiments showed that the alpha 1-tubulin gene (NDA2) is essential whereas the alpha 2 gene is dispensable. The alpha 2-disrupted cells missing alpha 2 transcript and alpha 2 polypeptide could grow and sporulate normally. The alpha 2 gene, however, was expressed in the wild type and the alpha 1 mutant. Alpha 2-Tubulin was distinguished as an electrophoretic band and was assembled into microtubules. The alpha 2-disrupted cells had an increased sensitivity to an antimicrotubule drug thiabendazole, and the alpha 1(cold-sensitive [cs]) alpha 2 (disrupted) cells became not only cs but also temperature sensitive. Northern blot experiments indicated that alpha 2 transcription was minor and constitutive whereas alpha 1 transcription was major and modulated, depending on the gene copy number of the alpha 2 gene. The amounts of alpha 1 and alpha 2 polypeptides estimated by beta-galactosidase activities of the lacZ-fused genes integrated on the chromosome and by intensities of the electrophoretic bands in crude tubulin fractions, however, were comparable, indicating that alpha 2 tubulin is not a minor subtype. We assume that the cells of Schizosaccharomyces pombe have no excess tubulin pool. alpha 1 mutants would then be blocked in the cell cycle because only half the amount of functional alpha-tubulin required for growth can be produced by the alpha 2 gene. On the other hand, the alpha 2-disrupted cells became viable because the synthesis of alpha 1 tubulin was increased by transcriptional or translational modulation or both. The real cause for essential alpha 1 and dispensable alpha 2 genes seems to be in their regulatory sequences instead of the coding sequences.


1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 5286-5294 ◽  
Author(s):  
W Katz ◽  
B Weinstein ◽  
F Solomon

Microtubule organization in the cytoplasm is in part a function of the number and length of the assembled polymers. The intracellular concentration of tubulin could specify those parameters. Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains constructed with moderately decreased or increased copy numbers of tubulin genes provide an opportunity to study the cellular response to a steady-state change in tubulin concentration. We found no evidence of a mechanism for adjusting tubulin concentrations upward from a deficit, nor did we find a need for such a mechanism: cells with no more than 50% of the wild-type tubulin level were normal with respect to a series of microtubule-dependent properties. Strains with increased copies of both alpha- and beta-tubulin genes, or of alpha-tubulin genes alone, apparently did down regulate their tubulin levels. As a result, they contained greater than normal concentrations of tubulin but much less than predicted from the increase in gene number. Some of this down regulation occurred at the level of protein. These strains were also phenotypically normal. Cells could contain excess alpha-tubulin protein without detectable consequences, but perturbations resulting in excess beta-tubulin genes may have affected microtubule-dependent functions. All of the observed regulation of levels of tubulin can be explained as a response to toxicity associated with excess tubulin proteins, especially if beta-tubulin is much more toxic than alpha-tubulin.


1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 5286-5294
Author(s):  
W Katz ◽  
B Weinstein ◽  
F Solomon

Microtubule organization in the cytoplasm is in part a function of the number and length of the assembled polymers. The intracellular concentration of tubulin could specify those parameters. Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains constructed with moderately decreased or increased copy numbers of tubulin genes provide an opportunity to study the cellular response to a steady-state change in tubulin concentration. We found no evidence of a mechanism for adjusting tubulin concentrations upward from a deficit, nor did we find a need for such a mechanism: cells with no more than 50% of the wild-type tubulin level were normal with respect to a series of microtubule-dependent properties. Strains with increased copies of both alpha- and beta-tubulin genes, or of alpha-tubulin genes alone, apparently did down regulate their tubulin levels. As a result, they contained greater than normal concentrations of tubulin but much less than predicted from the increase in gene number. Some of this down regulation occurred at the level of protein. These strains were also phenotypically normal. Cells could contain excess alpha-tubulin protein without detectable consequences, but perturbations resulting in excess beta-tubulin genes may have affected microtubule-dependent functions. All of the observed regulation of levels of tubulin can be explained as a response to toxicity associated with excess tubulin proteins, especially if beta-tubulin is much more toxic than alpha-tubulin.


1993 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.W. James ◽  
C.D. Silflow ◽  
P. Stroom ◽  
P.A. Lefebvre

A mutation in the alpha 1-tubulin gene of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was isolated by using the amiprophos-methyl-resistant mutation apm1-18 as a background to select new mutants that showed increased resistance to the drug. The upA12 mutation caused twofold resistance to amiprophos-methyl and oryzalin, and twofold hypersensitivity to the microtubule-stabilizing drug taxol, suggesting that the mutation enhanced microtubule stability. The resistance mutation was semi-dominant and mapped to the same interval on linkage group III as the alpha 1-tubulin gene. Two-dimensional gel immunoblots of proteins in the mutant cells revealed two electrophoretically altered alpha-tubulin isoforms, one of which was acetylated and incorporated into microtubules in the axoneme. The mutant isoforms co-segregated with the drug-resistance phenotypes when mutant upA12 was backcrossed to wild-type cells. Two-dimensional gel analysis of in vitro translation products showed that the non-acetylated variant alpha-tubulin was a primary gene product. DNA sequence analysis of the alpha 1-tubulin genes from mutant and wild-type cells revealed a single missense mutation, which predicted a change in codon 24 from tyrosine in wild type to histidine in mutant upA12. This alteration in the predicted amino acid sequence corroborated the approximately +1 basic charge shift observed for the variant alpha-tubulins. The mutant allele of the alpha 1-tubulin gene was designated tua1-1.


1988 ◽  
Vol 106 (4) ◽  
pp. 1171-1183 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Hirano ◽  
Y Hiraoka ◽  
M Yanagida

A temperature-sensitive mutant nuc2-663 of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe specifically blocks mitotic spindle elongation at restrictive temperature so that nuclei in arrested cells contain a short uniform spindle (approximately 3-micron long), which runs through a metaphase plate-like structure consisting of three condensed chromosomes. In the wild-type or in the mutant cells at permissive temperature, the spindle is fully extended approximately 15-micron long in anaphase. The nuc2' gene was cloned in a 2.4-kb genomic DNA fragment by transformation, and its complete nucleotide sequence was determined. Its coding region predicts a 665-residues internally repeating protein (76.250 mol wt). By immunoblots using anti-sera raised against lacZ-nuc2+ fused proteins, a polypeptide (designated p67; 67,000 mol wt) encoded by nuc2+ is detected in the wild-type S. pombe extracts; the amount of p67 is greatly increased when multi-copy or high-expression plasmids carrying the nuc2+ gene are introduced into the S. pombe cells. Cellular fractionation and Percoll gradient centrifugation combined with immunoblotting show that p67 cofractionates with nuclei and is enriched in resistant structure that is insoluble in 2 M NaCl, 25 mM lithium 3,5'-diiodosalicylate, and 1% Triton but is soluble in 8 M urea. In nuc2 mutant cells, however, soluble p76, perhaps an unprocessed precursor, accumulates in addition to insoluble p67. The role of nuc2+ gene may be to interconnect nuclear and cytoskeletal functions in chromosome separation.


1988 ◽  
Vol 106 (6) ◽  
pp. 2035-2046 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Y Lai ◽  
S P Remillard ◽  
C Fulton

Genes that direct the programmed synthesis of flagellar alpha-tubulin during the differentiation of Naegleria gruberi from amebae to flagellates have been cloned, and found to be novel with respect to gene organization, sequence, and conservation. The flagellar alpha-tubulin gene family is represented in the genome by about eight homologous DNA segments that are exceptionally similar and yet are neither identical nor arrayed in a short tandem repeat. The coding regions of three of these genes have been sequenced, two from cDNA clones and one from an intronless genomic gene. These three genes encode an identical alpha-tubulin that is conserved relative to the alpha-tubulins of other organisms except at the carboxyl terminus, where the protein is elongated by two residues and ends in a terminal glutamine instead of the canonical tyrosine. In spite of the protein conservation, the Naegleria DNA sequence has diverged markedly from the alpha-tubulin genes of other organisms, a counterexample to the idea that tubulin genes are conserved. alpha-Tubulin mRNA homologous to this gene family has not been detected in amebae. This mRNA increases markedly in abundance during the first hour of differentiation, and then decreases even more rapidly with a half-life of approximately 8 min. The abundance of physical alpha-tubulin mRNA rises and subsequently falls in parallel with the abundance of translatable flagellar tubulin mRNA and with the in vivo rate of flagellar tubulin synthesis, which indicates that flagellar tubulin synthesis is directly regulated by the relative rates of transcription and mRNA degradation.


1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1422-1429
Author(s):  
C Whitfield ◽  
I Abraham ◽  
D Ascherman ◽  
M M Gottesman

Total genomic DNA from a temperature-sensitive, colcemid-resistant Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell mutant expressing an electrophoretic variant beta-tubulin was used to transform wild-type CHO cells to colcemid-resistant cells at 37 degrees C. Southern blot analysis of the transformant demonstrated the three- to fivefold amplification of one of many beta-tubulin sequences compared with that of the wild type or mutant, thereby identifying a functional tubulin gene in CHO cells. This amplification of one tubulin-coding sequence resulted in a threefold increase in two beta-tubulin mRNA species, suggesting that both species may be encoded by a single gene. Pulse-chase experiments showed that in the transformant, total beta-tubulin was synthesized and degraded faster than in the revertant or wild-type cells, so that the steady-state levels of beta-tubulin and alpha-tubulin were unchanged in the transformant compared with those of wild-type, mutant, or revertant cells. Increased ratios of mutant to wild-type beta-tubulin made the transformant dependent on microtubule-depolymerizing drugs for growth at 37 but not 34 degrees C and supersensitive to the microtubule-stabilizing drug taxol at 34 degrees C.


eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey P Gasch ◽  
James Hose ◽  
Michael A Newton ◽  
Maria Sardi ◽  
Mun Yong ◽  
...  

In our prior work by Hose et al., we performed a genome-sequencing survey and reported that aneuploidy was frequently observed in wild strains of S. cerevisiae. We also profiled transcriptome abundance in naturally aneuploid isolates compared to isogenic euploid controls and found that 10–30% of amplified genes, depending on the strain and affected chromosome, show lower-than-expected expression compared to gene copy number. In Hose et al., we argued that this gene group is enriched for genes subject to one or more modes of dosage compensation, where mRNA abundance is decreased in response to higher dosage of that gene. A recent manuscript by Torres et al. refutes our prior work. Here, we provide a response to Torres et al., along with additional analysis and controls to support our original conclusions. We maintain that aneuploidy is well tolerated in the wild strains of S. cerevisiae that we studied and that the group of genes enriched for those subject to dosage compensation show unique evolutionary signatures.


Development ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 120 (10) ◽  
pp. 2835-2845
Author(s):  
W.G. Damen ◽  
L.A. van Grunsven ◽  
A.E. van Loon

The expression of alpha- and beta-tubulin genes during the early development of the marine mollusk Patella vulgata has been investigated. From the 32-cell stage onwards, an enhanced expression of both alpha- and beta-tubulin mRNAs was detected in the primary trochoblasts. After one additional cleavage, these cells become cleavage-arrested and then form cilia. They are the first cells to differentiate during Patella development. Later, alpha- and beta-tubulin mRNA is also found in the accessory and secondary trochoblasts. Together these three cell-lines form the prototroch, the ciliated locomotory organ of the trochophore larva. The early and abundant expression of tubulin genes precede and accompany cilia formation in the trochoblasts and provides us with an excellent molecular differentiation marker for these cells. Apart from the trochoblasts, tubulin gene expression was also found in other cells at some stages. At the 88-cell stage, elevated tubulin mRNA levels were found around the large nucleus of the mesodermal stem cell 4d. In later stages, tubulin gene expression was detected in the cells that form the flagella of the apical tuft and in the refractive bodies. An alpha-tubulin gene was isolated and characterized. A lacZ fusion gene under control of the 5′ upstream region of this tubulin gene was microinjected into embryos at the two-cell stage. The reporter gene product was only detected in the three trochoblast cell-lines at the same time as tubulin genes were expressed in these cells. Reporter gene product was not detected in any other cells. Thus, this 5′ upstream region of this alpha-tubulin gene contains all the elements required for the correct spatiotemporal pattern of expression.


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