Protein synthesis and its relation to the DNA-division cycle in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

The rate of protein synthesis has been measured with pulse labels of [3H]tryptophan in synchronous and asynchronous cultures of cdc mutants of Schizosaccharomyces pombe shifted up to the restrictive temperature. The cell cycle related fluctuations in rate that occur in normal synchronous cultures vanish when nuclear division is blocked in synchronous cultures of cdc2 and cdc10. But they persist in cdc11 where nuclear division continues and cleavage is stopped. We conclude that nuclear division affects the rate of synthesis and that this effect is inhibitory and probably persists for the last 40% of the cycle. When nuclear division has been blocked, the rate of synthesis continues to increase until a plateau is reached where the rate remains constant. Three size mutants of cdc2 reach the plateau at the same average protein content per cell although their initial protein contents vary over a threefold range. Comparison of these results with those from cdc10 leads to the tentative conclusion that the plateau starts when the cells reach a critical protein/DNA ratio.