From cell polarization to cell fusion: What yeast cells can teach us

Date

Jan 23, 2020

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Sophie Martin

Affiliation

University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Stephan Grill

Description

The ability to spatially polarize biochemical activities is a critical property of living systems. How cells self-organize to define a site of polarization that underlies directional migration, division, growth or cell fusion is a question of general interest. To address it, we are using the fission yeast as simple eukaryotic model. Work in unicellular eukaryotes has established that, while most cells polarize in response to a spatial cue, feedback mechanisms in the core cell polarization molecular machinery lead to spontaneously symmetry breaking even in absence of a cue. I will present our recent work centred around the small GTPases Cdc42 and Ras. We used an optogenetic approach to demonstrate positive feedback regulation of Cdc42 in vivo and engineered interactions to reconstruct it and probe its function. Serendipitous observations from this work further revealed membrane flows that pattern the lateral cellular regions around the site of polarity, which we are characterizing through modelling and synthetic approaches. I will further present our work aiming to define how pheromone signalling during sexual reproduction re-wires the polarization machinery to promote cell pairing and fusion.

Last modified: Jan 24, 2020, 12:08:27 AM