Cell-cycle involvement in autophagy and apoptosis in yeast

Abstract

Regulation of the cell cycle and apoptosis are two eukaryotic processes required to ensure maintenance of genomic integrity, especially in response to DNA damage. The ease with which yeast, amongst other eukaryotes, can switch from cellular proliferation to cell death may be the result of a common set of biochemical factors which play dual roles depending on the cell's physiological state. A wide variety of homologues are shared between different yeasts and metazoans and this conservation confirms their importance. This review gives an overview of key molecular players involved in yeast cell-cycle regulation, and those involved in mechanisms which are induced by cell-cycle dysregulation. One such mechanism is autophagy which, depending on the severity and type of DNA damage, may either contribute to the cell's survival or death. Cell-cycle dysregulation due to checkpoint deficiency leads to mitotic catastrophe which in turn leads to programmed cell death. Molecular players implicated in the yeast apoptotic pathway were shown to play important roles in the cell cycle. These include the metacaspase Yca1p, the caspase-like protein Esp1p, the cohesin subunit Mcd1p, as well as the inhibitor of apoptosis protein Bir1p. The roles of these molecular players are discussed.

Identification and Characterization of Key Charged Residues in the Cofilin Protein Involved in Azole Susceptibility, Apoptosis, and Virulence of Aspergillus fumigatus

“…A recent study suggests that the antifungal agent perillaldehyde can trigger a similar mitochondrion-dependent apoptosis in Aspergillus flavus (17). Taken together, these findings show that Aspergillus species have an intact programmed mode of apoptosis just like that in mammalian cells and Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast (13,45). Additionally, we demonstrated that cofilin is associated with apoptosis in an Aspergillus species, suggesting that this protein has a conserved role in apoptosis.…”

Yeast for virus research

“…In fact, some of the same mammalian pro-apoptotic or anti-apoptotic regulators were found in yeasts that show similar activities to higher eukaryotes. For detailed reviews of this subject, see 158 161 165 166 167 168 . Although yeast apoptosis is not as well studied in fission yeast as in budding yeast, an apoptotic-like process does seem to be present in fission yeast 169 .…”

Leishmania dual‐specificity tyrosine‐regulated kinase 1 (DYRK1) is required for sustaining Leishmania stationary phase phenotype

“…Moreover, null mutants in stationary phase accumulated a greater percentage of cells with two nuclei (N) and two kinetoplasts (K) (17% and 29% of clones Lin DYRK1 −/− A1 and Lin DYRK1 −/− A2, respectively), and a greater percentage of cells with 2N1K (7% and 12.5% for clones Lin DYRK1 −/− A1 and Lin DYRK1 −/− A2, respectively) versus ≤3.3% of 2N2K and ≤1% of 2N1K of control cells (parental line Lin DYRK1 −/− [pXNG‐ Lin DYRK1]A and Lin DYRK1 +/+ ) (Figure d). This could be an indication that these promastigotes are in a stress related G 2 /M cell cycle arrest, which in due time results in cell death (Azzopardi, Farrugia, & Balzan, ).…”