No abstract

Latino immigrants face many stressors before, during, and after migration to the U.S., but there are few mental health services available to help them cope with this transition. We established free group sessions moderated by bilingual therapists to address the unmet mental health needs of Latino immigrants.

Unicellular eukaryotes are suggested to undergo self-inflicted destruction. However, molecular details are sparse by comparison to the mechanisms of cell death known for human cells and animal models. Here we report a molecular pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae leading to vacuole/lysosome membrane permeabilization and cell death. Following exposure to heat-ramp conditions, a model of environmental stress, we observed that yeast cell death occurs over several hours, suggesting an ongoing molecular dying process. A genome-wide screen for death-promoting factors identified all subunits of the AP-3 adaptor complex. AP-3 promotes stress-induced cell death through its Arf1-GTPase-dependent vesicle trafficking function, which is required to transport and install proteins on the vacuole/lysosome membrane, including a death-promoting protein kinase Yck3. Time-lapse microscopy revealed a sequence of events where AP-3-dependent vacuole permeability occurs hours before the loss of plasma membrane integrity. An AP-3-dependent cell death pathway appears to be conserved in the human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.