The morphology of Saccharomyces cerevisiae colonies is affected by cell adhesion and the budding pattern.
Formation of organized colony morphology is clearly a result of organized, coordinated behavior of cells within a colony, which reflects changes in the cell environment, nutrient availability, inter- and intracolony signaling and others. Under standard conditions, colony morphology is specific to the particular yeast strain, which indicates that reproducibility of the structure appears to be a hallmark of programmed development. Our data indicate that markedly structured morphology of colonies formed by some haploid and diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains is linked to formation of clusters of incompletely separated yeast cells organized into larger aggregates. A prerequisite to aggregate formation appears to be a monopolar budding pattern and the presence of an extracellular matrix and adhesins connecting individual clusters within aggregates. In contrast, less structured colonies of other strains are composed of non-aggregated cells exhibiting different modes of budding (axial/polar/random) in different colony areas. The budding pattern appears to be influenced more by the environment (the presence of surrounding cells, nutrient gradients, etc.) than by strain ploidy. Disruption of the BUD2 gene results in uniform random budding of cells and it partially influences colony morphology.
Vopálenská
Irena
I
Department of Genetics and Microbiology, Charles University, Vinicná 5, 128 44 Prague 2, Czech Republic.
Hůlková
Marta
M
Janderová
Blanka
B
Palková
Zdena
Z
D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002455:Cell Division; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D020558:GTP Phosphohydrolases / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D020690:GTPase-Activating Proteins; D009024:Morphogenesis; D010784:Photomicrography; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology
C083102:BUD2 protein, S cerevisiae; D005656:Fungal Proteins; D020690:GTPase-Activating Proteins; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D020558:GTP Phosphohydrolases