Signal transduction in yeast mating: receptors, transcription factors, and the kinase connection.

In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, peptide mating pheromones activate a signal transduction pathway that leads to cellular differentiation and cell division cycle arrest. It is now possible to trace the major events of this pathway. binding of pheromone to G-protein-coupled receptors activates a cascade of serine/threonine protein kinases that ultimately phosphorylate and increase the activity of an identified transcription factor.