An Evolutionarily Conserved Prion-like Element Converts Wild Fungi from Metabolic Specialists to Generalists
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Author(s)
Jarosz, Daniel F.
Lancaster, Alex K.
Brown, Jessica Conrad
Lindquist, Susan
Date Issued
August 2014
Journal
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Jarosz, Daniel F. et al. “An Evolutionarily Conserved Prion-like Element Converts Wild Fungi from Metabolic Specialists to Generalists.” Cell 158.5 (2014): 1072–1082.
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Author's final manuscript
Abstract
[GAR[superscript +]] is a protein-based element of inheritance that allows yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to circumvent a normal hallmark of their biology: extreme metabolic specialization for glucose fermentation. When glucose is present, even in trace quantities, yeast will not use other carbon
sources. [GAR[superscript +]] allows cells to circumvent this “glucose repression.” [GAR[superscript +]] is induced in yeast by a factor secreted by bacteria inhabiting their environment. We report that the de novo rates of [GAR[superscript +]] appearance correlate with the yeast’s ecological niche. Evolutionarily distant fungi possess similar epigenetic elements that are also induced by bacteria. As expected for a mechanism whose adaptive value originates from the selective pressures of life in biological communities, the ability of bacteria to induce [GAR[superscript +]] and the ability of yeast to respond to bacterial signals have been extinguished repeatedly during the extended monoculture of domestication. Thus, [GAR[superscript +]] is a broadly conserved adaptive strategy that links environmental and social cues to heritable changes in metabolism.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.07.024
