Environ Exp Biol (2017) 15: 283–288

Adenine starvation is signalled through environmental stress response system in budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

In the wild, budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae often undergoes periods of nutrient abundance and absolute scarcity. It is capable of effectively halting its cell cycle in G1, in the case of lack of any basic nutrients. However, when lacking metabolic intermediates, the yeast behaves differently. Purine and not pyrimidine auxotrophic starvation in S. cerevisiae elicits rapid cell cycle arrest and increase of several stress (oxidative, acid, heat) resistances. Until now, molecular mechanisms governing formation of phenotype during auxotrophic adenine starvation in S. cerevisiae are not understood. The aim of the current research was to determine if the elements of environmental stress response system play a role during phenotype formation in adenine starvation in budding yeast. We tested if MSN2/4 or RIM15 C-end truncation affects desiccation tolerance in full media and after adenine starvation. We found that functional defects of each element of environmental stress response systems affected desiccation tolerance, however, C-end truncation of RIM15 lowered desiccation tolerance by several orders of magnitude, while MSN2/4 C-end truncation only by 2 to 4 times. Therefore, we hypothesize that there are other elements of the environmental stress response system except MSN4 and MSN2, responsible for adenine starvation specific, stress tolerant phenotype formulation.