Two Rabs, Ypt3 and Ypt2, regulating the trafficking of Golgi-derived secretory vesicles have key roles in biogenesis of the spore plasma membrane in fission yeast. During sporulation, the Rabs and secretory vesicles relocalize at the meiotic spindle pole body, where spore plasma membrane formation subsequently initiates.

Sporulation, gametogenesis in yeast, consists of meiotic nuclear division and spore morphogenesis. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the four haploid nuclei produced after meiosis II are encapsulated by the forespore membrane (FSM), which is newly synthesized from spindle pole bodies (SPBs) in the cytoplasm of the mother cell as spore precursors. Although the coordination between meiosis and FSM assembly is vital for proper sporulation, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In the present study, we identified a new meiosis-specific protein Npg1, and found that it was involved in the efficient formation of spores and spore viability. The accumulation and organization of the FSM was compromised in npg1-null cells, leading to the error-prone envelopment of nuclei. Npg1 was first seen as internuclear dots and translocated to the SPBs before the FSM assembled. Genetic analysis revealed that Npg1 worked in conjunction with the FSM proteins Spo3 and Meu14. These results suggest a possible signaling link from the nucleus to the meiotic SPBs in order to associate the onset of FSM assembly with meiosis II, which ensures the successful partitioning of gametic nuclei.

In Schizosaccharomyces pombe, ecl family genes are induced by several signals, such as starvation of various nutrients, including sulfur, amino acids, and magnesium, and environmental stress, including heat or oxidative stress. These genes mediate appropriate cellular responses and contribute to the maintenance of cell viability and induction of sexual differentiation. Although this yeast has three ecl family genes with overlapping functions, any environmental conditions that induce ecl3+ remain unidentified. We demonstrate that ecl3+ is induced by phosphate starvation, similar to its chromosomally neighboring genes, pho1+ and pho84+, which respectively encode an extracellular acid phosphatase and an inorganic phosphate transporter. ecl3+ expression was induced by the transcription factor Pho7 and affected by the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-activating kinase Csk1. Phosphate starvation induced G1 arrest and sexual differentiation via ecl family genes. Biochemical analyses suggested that this G1 arrest was mediated by the stabilization of the CDK inhibitor Rum1, which was dependent on ecl family genes. This study shows that ecl family genes are required for appropriate responses to phosphate starvation and provides novel insights into the diversity and similarity of starvation responses.