Institute of Medical Biology, Agency of Science, Technology and Research, 8A Biomedical Grove, Singapore 138648, Singapore.
Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2013 Apr;24(4):332-8. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2013.01.009. Epub 2013 Feb 10.
In spite of the existence of multiple cellular mechanisms that ensure genome stability, thanks to the advent of quantitative genomic assays in the last decade, an unforeseen level of plasticity in cellular genomes has begun to emerge in many different fields of cell biology. Eukaryotic cells not only have a remarkable ability to change their karyotypes in response to various perturbations, but also these karyotypic changes impact cellular fitness and in some circumstances enable evolutionary adaptation. In this review, we focus on recent findings in non-pathogenic yeasts indicating that karyotypic changes generate selectable phenotypic variation and alter genomic instability. Based on these findings, we propose that in highly stressful and thus strongly selective environments karyotypic changes could act both as a driver and as a catalyzer of cellular adaptation, i.e. karyotypic changes drive large phenotypic leaps and at the same time catalyze the accumulation of even more genotypic and karyotypic changes.
尽管存在多种确保基因组稳定性的细胞机制，但由于过去十年中定量基因组分析方法的出现，细胞基因组的可塑性在许多不同的细胞生物学领域开始显现。真核细胞不仅具有显著的能力，可以响应各种干扰来改变其核型，而且这些核型变化还会影响细胞适应性，在某些情况下还能促进进化适应。在这篇综述中，我们关注非致病性酵母中的最新发现，这些发现表明核型变化会产生可选择的表型变异，并改变基因组不稳定性。基于这些发现，我们提出在高度应激和因此强烈选择的环境中，核型变化既可以作为细胞适应的驱动因素，也可以作为细胞适应的催化剂，即核型变化会导致大的表型飞跃，同时也会促进更多的基因型和核型变化的积累。
