Discover how yeast cells communicate with each other to adapt to changing nutrient sources, revealing a crucial survival mechanism for microorganisms.
The Yeast’s Survival Secrets
In order to survive in your environment tiny organisms like yeast have to sense and respond to changes around you. New research by MIT scientists has revealed that yeast cells can send signals to each other and change the mode of their metabolism, from consuming a favored nutrient to use less-preferred fare instead, when they perceive a shortage in what they normally consume.
These molecules act as an interface (‘Nitrogen Signaling Factors’ NSFs) with the mitochondria, the cells energy factories. They discovered that higher amounts of NSF promote differential gene expression in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, allowing yeast cells to use alternative nutrient sources.
The team also used sophisticated methods to see how NSFs were binding a mitochondrial protein important in metabolism. It exposed a vital strategy yeast cells use to economize on their food supply, helping them to stave off starvation in lean years.
Lessons from Yeast for Humans
Modest though it may be, yeast has proven an important model for learning the basics of cell biology and gene expression control. Yeast communication, adaptation could have relevance for many processesThe researchers behind this study — led by the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research and including collaborators in Japan — think their findings about yeast communication and adaptation may apply more generally.
Yet, as study co-author Michael Bühler notes, ” Strategies for growth and survival are conserved across species. “Studying yeast taught us a great deal about cell biology and the regulation of gene expression.”
In addition to the academic reasons for studying yeast metabolism, the researchers say deeper knowledge could be of particular importance in pathogenic situations where microorganisms may present a challenge to human health. Deciphering how yeast communicate while coping with changes in their surroundings could help researchers devise new methods by which to control or co-opt these processes in additional, beneficial and harmful microbes.
Conclusion
Considering that resolution of yeast communication and adaptation has already provided a key insight into essential mechanisms in microbial physiology to adapt well under altered nutrient conditions. In addition to the insights that this basic understanding of cell biology provides, it also has implications towards potential therapeutic intervention in pathological scenarios associated with microbes. As we learn more about the intricate world of these small creatures, new information may present myriad applications in anything from managing our resources as beautifully and sustainably as they do to guiding us toward how to protect human health.
