The Rif1 protein, originally identified as a telomere-binding factor in yeast, has recently been implicated in DNA replication control from yeast to metazoans. Here, we show that budding yeast Rif1 protein inhibits activation of prereplication complexes (pre-RCs). This inhibitory function requires two N-terminal motifs, RVxF and SILK, associated with recruitment of PP1 phosphatase (Glc7). In G1 phase, we show both that Glc7 interacts with Rif1 in an RVxF/SILK-dependent manner and that two proteins implicated in pre-RC activation, Mcm4 and Sld3, display increased Dbf4-dependent kinase (DDK) phosphorylation in rif1 mutants. Rif1 also interacts with Dbf4 in yeast two-hybrid assays, further implicating this protein in direct modulation of pre-RC activation through the DDK. Finally, we demonstrate Rif1 RVxF/SILK motif-dependent recruitment of Glc7 to telomeres and earlier replication of these regions in cells where the motifs are mutated. Our data thus link Rif1 to negative regulation of replication origin firing through recruitment of the Glc7 phosphatase.

Repressor activator protein 1 (RAP1) is the most highly conserved telomere protein. It is involved in protecting chromosome ends in fission yeast, promoting gene silencing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae while in Kluyveromyces lactis it is required to repress homology directed recombination (HDR) at telomeres. Since mammalian RAP1 requires TRF2 for stable expression, its role in telomere function has remained obscure. To understand how RAP1 plays such diverse functions at telomeres, we solved the crystal or solution structures of the C-terminal RCT domains of RAP1 from multiple organisms in complex with their respective protein-binding partners. Our comparative structural analysis establishes the RCT domain of RAP1 as an evolutionarily conserved protein-protein interaction module. In mammalian and fission yeast cells, this module interacts with TRF2 and Taz1, respectively, targeting RAP1 to chromosome ends for telomere end protection. While RAP1 repress NHEJ at fission yeast telomeres, at mammalian telomeres it is required to repress HDR. In contrast, S. cerevisiae RAP1 utilizes the RCT domain to recruit Sir3 to telomeres to mediate gene silencing. Together, our results reveal that depending on the organism, the evolutionarily conserved RAP1 RCT motif plays diverse functional roles at telomeres.

Observing cellular responses to perturbations is central to generating and testing hypotheses in biology. We developed a massively parallel microchemostat array capable of growing and observing 1,152 yeast-GFP strains on the single-cell level with 20 min time resolution. We measured protein abundance and localization changes in 4,085 GFP-tagged strains in response to methyl methanesulfonate and analyzed 576 GFP strains in five additional conditions for a total of more than 10,000 unique experiments, providing a systematic view of the yeast proteome in flux. We observed that processing bodies formed rapidly and synchronously in response to UV irradiation, and in conjunction with 506 deletion-GFP strains, identified four gene disruptions leading to abnormal ribonucleotide-diphosphate reductase (Rnr4) localization. Our microchemostat platform enables the large-scale interrogation of proteomes in flux and permits the concurrent observation of protein abundance, localization, cell size, and growth parameters on the single-cell level for thousands of microbial cultures in one experiment.O bserving proteins in the cellular milieu has been a longstanding technical challenge in biology. One major advance was the development of GFP, enabling the visualization of proteins in vivo (1). High-content imaging has been primarily applied to mammalian cells, using either reverse transfection arrays or microtiter-based systems in which the slow doubling time of mammalian cells enables long-term imaging under static conditions (2, 3).The Saccharomyces cerevisiae GFP fusion library covering 4,159 proteins provided the first static view of global protein abundance, localization, and noise (4, 5). This library was recently used to establish the static differences in protein abundance and localization in response to DNA replication stress induced by methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) and hydroxyurea (HU) (6), in response to DTT, H 2 O 2 , and nitrogen starvation (7), and 800 cytoplasmic proteins were analyzed upon entry into stationary phase (8). These three recent large-scale screens all relied on standard microtiter plates for imaging the yeast strains at a single time point before and after perturbation. Meanwhile, microfluidic devices emerged as powerful tools for conducting complex time-lapse experiments on small to medium scales (9, 10), enabling the analysis of cellular network responses (11) and the implementation of synthetically engineered systems (12). However, it has thus far been technically impossible to interrogate thousands of continuously growing microbial strains with high spatiotemporal resolution in a single experiment.Despite the fact that a wealth of systems-level information is available for S. cerevisiae, the single-cell temporal dynamics of protein abundance and localization has not yet been measured on a systems scale. To enable such analyses we developed a microfluidic platform capable of growing and observing 1,152 yeast strains with a temporal resolution of 20 min. We explored the dynamic behavior of ∼2/3 of the...

The budding yeast Cdc13, Stn1 and Ten1 (CST) proteins are proposed to function as an RPA-like complex at telomeres that protects ('caps') chromosome ends and regulates their elongation by telomerase. We show that Stn1 has a critical function in both processes through the deployment of two separable domains. The N terminus of Stn1 interacts with Ten1 and carries out its essential capping function. The C terminus of Stn1 binds both Cdc13 and Pol12, and we present genetic data indicating that the Stn1-Cdc13 interaction is required to limit continuous telomerase action. Stn1 telomere association, similar to that of Cdc13, peaks during S phase. Significantly, the magnitude of Stn1 telomere binding is independent of telomere TG tract length, suggesting that the negative effect of Stn1 on telomerase action might be regulated by a modification of CST activity or structure in cis at individual telomeres. Genetic analysis suggests that the Tell kinase exerts an effect in parallel with the Stn1 C terminus to counteract its inhibition of telomerase. These data provide new insights into the coordination of telomere capping and telomerase regulation.