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Evidence for control of nitrogen metabolism by a START-dependent mechanism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

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Abstract

It is generally thought that cell growth and metabolism regulate cell division and not vice versa. Here, we examined Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells growing under conditions of continuous culture in a chemostat. We found that loss of G1 cyclins, or inactivation of the cyclin-dependent kinase Cdc28p, reduced the activity of glutamate synthase (Glt1p), a key enzyme in nitrogen assimilation. We also present evidence indicating that the G1 cyclin-dependent control of Glt1p may involve Jem1p, a DnaJ-type chaperone. Our results suggest that completion of START may be linked to nitrogen metabolism.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Gonzalez for her generous gift of anti-Glt1p antibody, T. Endo for kindly providing the JEM1 plasmids, and S. Haase for suggesting the use of Sytox for DNA content measurements. We are grateful to our colleagues at Texas A&M, especially to J. Miller for flow cytometry; P. Fitzpatrick and P. Sobrado for help and advice on enzymatic assays; and J. Hu and R. Young for continuous discussions. We also thank I. Hariharan for discussions. This work was supported by grants to M.P. from the American Heart Association-Texas Affiliate (0060115Y) and the National Institutes of Health (RO1-GM62377)

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M University, 2128 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA

    B. A. Bryan, E. McGrew, Y. Lu & M. Polymenis

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  1. B. A. Bryan
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  2. E. McGrew
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  3. Y. Lu
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  4. M. Polymenis
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Correspondence to M. Polymenis.

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Communicated by C. P. Hollenberg

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Bryan, B.A., McGrew, E., Lu, Y. et al. Evidence for control of nitrogen metabolism by a START-dependent mechanism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Mol Genet Genomics 271, 72–81 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-003-0957-5

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