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Title: Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals intrinsic and extrinsic regulatory heterogeneity in yeast responding to stress

Journal Article · · PLoS Biology (Online)
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [1];  [6]
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Stanford Univ.,Stanford, CA (United States)
  3. Stanford Univ.,Stanford, CA (United States); Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
  4. USDOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Walnut Creek, CA (United States)
  5. Stanford Univ.,Stanford, CA (United States); Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, (United States)
  6. Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Jerusalem (Israel)

From bacteria to humans, individual cells within isogenic populations can show significant variation in stress tolerance, but the nature of this heterogeneity is not clear. To investigate this, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to quantify transcript heterogeneity in single Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells treated with and without salt stress to explore population variation and identify cellular covariates that influence the stress-responsive transcriptome. Leveraging the extensive knowledge of yeast transcriptional regulation, we uncovered significant regulatory variation in individual yeast cells, both before and after stress. We also discovered that a subset of cells appears to decouple expression of ribosomal protein genes from the environmental stress response in a manner partly correlated with the cell cycle but unrelated to the yeast ultradian metabolic cycle. Live-cell imaging of cells expressing pairs of fluorescent regulators, including the transcription factor Msn2 with Dot6, Sfp1, or MAP kinase Hog1, revealed both coordinated and decoupled nucleocytoplasmic shuttling. Together with transcriptomic analysis, our results suggest that cells maintain a cellular filter against decoupled bursts of transcription factor activation but mount a stress response upon coordinated regulation, even in a subset of unstressed cells.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-07ER64494; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1499873
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1619084
Journal Information:
PLoS Biology (Online), Vol. 15, Issue 12; ISSN 1545-7885
Publisher:
Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 78 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Systematic genetics and single‐cell imaging reveal widespread morphological pleiotropy and cell‐to‐cell variability journal February 2020
Sensitive high-throughput single-cell RNA-seq reveals within-clonal transcript correlations in yeast populations journal February 2019
The renaissance of yeasts as microbial factories in the modern age of biomanufacturing journal September 2019
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Exactly solvable models of stochastic gene expression journal April 2020
Complex genetic and epigenetic regulation deviates gene expression from a unifying global transcriptional program journal September 2019
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