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Fission yeast mod5p regulates polarized growth through anchoring of tea1p at cell tips

Nature volume 423, pages 647–651 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Microtubules have a central role in eukaryotic cell polarity1, in part through interactions between microtubule end-binding proteins and the cell cortex2,3. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, microtubules and the polarity modulator tea1p maintain cylindrical cell shape and strictly antipodal cell growth4,5,6,7. The tea1p protein is transported to cell tips by association with growing microtubule plus ends8; once at cell tips, tea1p releases from microtubule ends and associates with the cell cortex, where it coordinates polarized growth4,6. Here we describe a cortical protein, mod5p, that regulates the dynamic behaviour of tea1p. In mod5Δ cells, tea1p is efficiently transported on microtubules to cell tips but fails to anchor properly at the cortex and thus fails to accumulate to normal levels. mod5p contains a signal for carboxy-terminal prenylation and in wild-type cells is associated with the plasma membrane at cell tips. However, in tea1Δ cells, although mod5p remains localized to the plasma membrane, mod5p is no longer restricted to the cell tips. We propose that tea1p and mod5p act in a positive-feedback loop in the microtubule-mediated regulation of cell polarity.

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Figure 1: mod5Δ cells fail to localize tea1p at cell ends.
Figure 2: Microtubule-independent targeting of tea1p to the cortex depends on mod5p.
Figure 3: tea1p is transported on microtubule ends to cell tips in mod5Δ cells.
Figure 4: mod5p localization to cell tips depends on a functional CaaX sequence and on tea1p.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology for discussions, and R. Allshire, I. Davis, W. Earnshaw and H. Ohkura for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship to K.E.S. H.A.S. is currently a Caledonian Research Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow.

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  1. Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology, Swann Building, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, EH9 3JR, Edinburgh, UK

    Hilary A. Snaith & Kenneth E. Sawin

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  2. Kenneth E. Sawin
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Correspondence to Kenneth E. Sawin.

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Snaith, H., Sawin, K. Fission yeast mod5p regulates polarized growth through anchoring of tea1p at cell tips. Nature 423, 647–651 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01672

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