An Evolutionarily Conserved Prion-like Element Converts Wild Fungi from Metabolic Specialists to Generalists

作者：Jarosz Daniel F; Lancaster Alex K; Brown Jessica C S; Lindquist Susan^*

来源：Cell, 2014, 158(5): 1072-1082.

DOI：10.1016/j.cell.2014.07.024

[GAR(+)] is a protein-based element of inheritance that allows yeast ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to circumvent a hallmark of their biology: extreme metabolic specialization for glucose fermentation. When glucose is present, yeast will not use other carbon sources. [GAR(+)] allows cells to circumvent this "glucose repression.'' [GAR(+)] is induced in yeast by a factor secreted by bacteria inhabiting their environment. We report that de novo rates of [GAR(+)] 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(+)] and the ability of yeast to respond to bacterial signals have been extinguished repeatedly during the extended monoculture of domestication. Thus, [GAR(+)] is a broadly conserved adaptive strategy that links environmental and social cues to heritable changes in metabolism.

• 出版日期2014-8-28
• 单位MIT