TY - JOUR

T1 - Autotoxin-mediated latecomer killing in yeast communities

AU - Oda, Arisa H.

AU - Tamura, Miki

AU - Kaneko, Kunihiko

AU - Ohta, Kunihiro

AU - Hatakeyama, Tetsuhiro S.

PY - 2022/11/7

Y1 - 2022/11/7

N2 - Cellular adaptation to stressful environments such as starvation is essential to the survival of microbial communities, but the uniform response of the cell community may lead to entire cell death or severe damage to their fitness. Here, we demonstrate an elaborate response of the yeast community against glucose depletion, in which the first adapted cells kill the latecomer cells. During glucose depletion, yeast cells release autotoxins, such as leucic acid and L-2keto-3methylvalerate, which can even kill the clonal cells of the ones producing them. Although these autotoxins were likely to induce mass suicide, some cells differentiated to adapt to the autotoxins without genetic changes. If nondifferentiated latecomers tried to invade the habitat, autotoxins damaged or killed the latecomers, but the differentiated cells could selectively survive. Phylogenetically distant fission and budding yeast shared this behavior using the same autotoxins, suggesting that latecomer killing may be the universal system of intercellular communication, which may be relevant to the evolutional transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms.

AB - Cellular adaptation to stressful environments such as starvation is essential to the survival of microbial communities, but the uniform response of the cell community may lead to entire cell death or severe damage to their fitness. Here, we demonstrate an elaborate response of the yeast community against glucose depletion, in which the first adapted cells kill the latecomer cells. During glucose depletion, yeast cells release autotoxins, such as leucic acid and L-2keto-3methylvalerate, which can even kill the clonal cells of the ones producing them. Although these autotoxins were likely to induce mass suicide, some cells differentiated to adapt to the autotoxins without genetic changes. If nondifferentiated latecomers tried to invade the habitat, autotoxins damaged or killed the latecomers, but the differentiated cells could selectively survive. Phylogenetically distant fission and budding yeast shared this behavior using the same autotoxins, suggesting that latecomer killing may be the universal system of intercellular communication, which may be relevant to the evolutional transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms.

KW - SCHIZOSACCHAROMYCES-POMBE

KW - CELL-DEATH

KW - EVOLUTION

KW - APOPTOSIS

KW - MUTANTS

KW - GENE

KW - IDENTIFICATION

KW - ANTAGONISM

KW - AUTOPHAGY

KW - BIOFILMS

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001844

DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001844

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36342925

VL - 20

JO - PLoS Biology

JF - PLoS Biology

SN - 1544-9173

IS - 11

M1 - 3001844

ER -