Publication Date:
2012-02-18
Description:
The self-templating conformations of yeast prion proteins act as epigenetic elements of inheritance. Yeast prions might provide a mechanism for generating heritable phenotypic diversity that promotes survival in fluctuating environments and the evolution of new traits. However, this hypothesis is highly controversial. Prions that create new traits have not been found in wild strains, leading to the perception that they are rare 'diseases' of laboratory cultivation. Here we biochemically test approximately 700 wild strains of Saccharomyces for [PSI(+)] or [MOT3(+)], and find these prions in many. They conferred diverse phenotypes that were frequently beneficial under selective conditions. Simple meiotic re-assortment of the variation harboured within a strain readily fixed one such trait, making it robust and prion-independent. Finally, we genetically screened for unknown prion elements. Fully one-third of wild strains harboured them. These, too, created diverse, often beneficial phenotypes. Thus, prions broadly govern heritable traits in nature, in a manner that could profoundly expand adaptive opportunities.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319070/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319070/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Halfmann, Randal -- Jarosz, Daniel F -- Jones, Sandra K -- Chang, Amelia -- Lancaster, Alex K -- Lindquist, Susan -- K99 GM098600/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2012 Feb 15;482(7385):363-8. doi: 10.1038/nature10875.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22337056" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Biological Evolution
;
Cell Wall/metabolism
;
Cytoplasm/metabolism
;
Epigenesis, Genetic
;
Genetic Association Studies
;
Genetic Variation/genetics
;
Genotype
;
Heat-Shock Proteins/genetics/metabolism
;
Laboratories
;
Meiosis
;
Peptide Termination Factors/genetics/metabolism
;
*Phenotype
;
Prions/genetics/*metabolism
;
Saccharomyces cerevisiae/*classification/cytology/*genetics/metabolism
;
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins/genetics/metabolism
;
Transcription Factors/genetics/metabolism
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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