Skip to main content

Cell Fusion Assays for Yeast Mating Pairs

  • Protocol
Cell Fusion

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology™ ((MIMB,volume 475))

Summary

Yeast mating provides an accessible genetic system for the discovery of fundamental mechanisms in eukaryotic cell fusion. Although aspects of yeast mating related to pheromone signaling and polarized growth have been intensively investigated, fusion itself is poorly understood. This chapter describes methods for measuring the overall efficiency of yeast cell fusion and for monitoring various stages of the fusion process including cell wall remodeling, plasma membrane fusion, and nuclear fusion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Protocol
USD 49.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    * Use of pEG463 requires a material transfer agreement from R. Tsien, UCSD, for mCherry (21).

References

  1. Haber, J. E. (1998) Mating-type gene switching in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Annu. Rev. Genet. 32, 561–599.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Cosma, M. P. (2004) Daughter-specific repression of Saccharomyces cerevisiae HO: Ash1 is the commander. EMBO Rep. 5 (10), 953–957.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Elion, E. A. (2000) Pheromone response, mating and cell biology. Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 3 (6), 573–581.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Bardwell, L. (2005) A walk-through of the yeast mating pheromone response pathway. Peptides 26 (2), 339–350.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. White, J. M. and Rose, M. D. (2001) Yeast mating: getting close to membrane merger. Curr. Biol. 11 (1), R16–R20.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Chen, E. H., Grote, E., Mohler, W., and Vignery, A. (2007) Cell–cell fusion. FEBS Lett. 581 (11), 2181–2193.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Rose MD. (1996) Nuclear fusion in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 12, 663–695.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Weisman, L. S. and Wickner, W. (1988) Intervacuole exchange in the yeast zygote: a new pathway in organelle communication. Science 241 (4865), 589–591.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Roy, A., Lu, C. F., Marykwas, D. L., Lipke, P. N., and Kurjan, J. (1991) The AGA1 product is involved in cell surface attachment of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell adhesion glycoprotein a-agglutinin. Mol. Cell. Biol. 11 (8), 4196–4206.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Heiman, M. G. and Walter, P. (2000) Prm1p, a pheromone-regulated multispan-ning membrane protein, facilitates plasma membrane fusion during yeast mating. J. Cell Biol. 151 (3), 719–730.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Erdman, S., Lin, L., Malczynski, M., and Snyder, M. (1998) Pheromone-regulated genes required for yeast mating differentiation. J. Cell Biol. 140 (3), 461–483.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Trueheart, J., Boeke, J. D., and Fink, G. R. (1987) Two genes required for cell fusion during yeast conjugation: evidence for a pheromone-induced surface protein. Mol. Cell. Biol. 7 (7), 2316–2328.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Sprague, G. F., Jr. (1991) Assay of yeast mating reaction. Methods Enzymol. 194, 77–93.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Vida, T. A. and Emr, S. D. (1995) A new vital stain for visualizing vacuolar membrane dynamics and endocytosis in yeast. J. Cell Biol. 128 (5), 779–792.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Jin, H., Carlile, C., Nolan, S., and Grote, E. (2004) Prm1 prevents contact-dependent lysis of yeast mating pairs. Eukaryot. Cell 3 (6), 1664–1673.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Nolan, S., Cowan, A. E., Koppel, D. E., Jin, H., and Grote, E. (2006) FUS1 Regulates the opening and expansion of fusion pores between mating yeast. Mol. Biol. Cell 17 (5), 2439–2450.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Maddox, P., Chin, E., Mallavarapu, A., Yeh, E., Salmon, E.D., and Bloom, K. (1999) Microtubule dynamics from mating through the first zygotic division in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J. Cell Biol. 144 (5), 977–987.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Berlin, V. , Brill, J. A., Trueheart, J., Boeke, J. D., and Fink, G. R. (1991) Genetic screens and selections for cell and nuclear fusion mutants. Methods Enzymol. 194, 774–792.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Tang, F., Kauffman, E. J., Novak, J. L., Nau, J. J., Catlett, N. L., and Weisman, L. S. (2003) Regulated degradation of a class V myosin receptor directs movement of the yeast vacuole. Nature 422 (6927), 87–92.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Stefan, C. J. and Blumer, K. J. (1999) A syntaxin homolog encoded by VAM3 mediates down-regulation of a yeast G protein–coupled receptor. J. Biol. Chem. 274 (3), 1835–1841.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Shaner, N. C., Campbell, R. E., Steinbach, P. A., Giepmans, B. N., Palmer, A. E., and Tsien, R. Y. (2004) Improved monomeric red, orange and yellow fluorescent proteins derived from Discosoma sp. red fluorescent protein. Nat. Biotechnol. 22 (12), 1567–1572.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Schiestl, R. H. and Gietz, R. D. (1989) High efficiency transformation of intact yeast cells using single stranded nucleic acids as a carrier. Curr. Genet. 16 (5–6), 339–346.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Gietz RD, Woods RA. (2006) Yeast transformation by the LiAc/SS carrier DNA/ PEG method. Methods Mol. Biol. 313, 107–120.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Aguilar, P. S., Engel, A., and Walter, P. (2006) The plasma membrane proteins Prm1 and Fig1 ascertain fidelity of membrane fusion during yeast mating. Mol. Biol. Cell 18 (2), 547–556.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Cormack, B. P., Bertram, G., Egerton, M., Gow, N. A., Falkow, S., and Brown, A. J. (1997) Yeast-enhanced green fluorescent protein (yEGFP)a reporter of gene expression in Candida albicans. Microbiology 143 (Pt 2), 303–311.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Ribas, J. C. and Wickner, R. B. (1998) The Gag domain of the Gag-Pol fusion protein directs incorporation into the L-A double-stranded RNA viral particles in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J Biol. Chem. 273 (15), 9306–9311.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. Scott Nolan participated in the development of the karyogamy, vacuole fusion, and permeance assays.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2008 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science + Business Media, LLC

About this protocol

Cite this protocol

Grote, E. (2008). Cell Fusion Assays for Yeast Mating Pairs. In: Chen, E.H. (eds) Cell Fusion. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 475. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-250-2_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-250-2_10

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-911-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-59745-250-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

Publish with us

Policies and ethics