The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London, NW1 1AT, UK.
Randall Centre for Cell and Molecular Biophysics, School of Basic and Medical Biosciences, King's College London, London, SE1 1UL, UK.
Nat Commun. 2019 Jan 21;10(1):268. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-08218-2.
Cells of a specific cell type may divide within a certain size range. Yet, functionally optimal cellular organization is typically maintained across different cell sizes, a phenomenon known as scaling. The mechanisms underlying scaling and its physiological significance remain elusive. Here we approach this problem by interfering with scaling in the rod-shaped fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces japonicus that relies on cellular geometry cues to position the division site. We show that S. japonicus uses the Cdc42 polarity module to adjust its geometry to changes in the cell size. When scaling is prevented resulting in abnormal cellular length-to-width aspect ratio, cells exhibit severe division site placement defects. We further show that despite the generally accepted view, a similar scaling phenomenon can occur in the sister species, Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Our results demonstrate that scaling is required for normal cell function and delineate possible rules for cellular geometry maintenance in populations of proliferating cells.
特定类型的细胞可能在特定的大小范围内分裂。然而，不同大小的细胞通常维持着功能最佳的细胞组织，这一现象被称为缩放。缩放的机制及其生理意义仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们通过干扰依赖细胞几何形状线索来定位分裂位点的杆状裂殖酵母 Schizosaccharomyces japonicus 中的缩放来解决这个问题。我们表明，S. japonicus 使用 Cdc42 极性模块来调整其几何形状以适应细胞大小的变化。当缩放被阻止导致细胞长宽比异常时，细胞表现出严重的分裂位点放置缺陷。我们进一步表明，尽管存在普遍接受的观点，但类似的缩放现象也可能发生在姐妹种 Schizosaccharomyces pombe 中。我们的结果表明缩放对于正常的细胞功能是必需的，并描绘了增殖细胞群体中细胞几何形状维持的可能规则。
