By recruiting the essential HIS3 gene to the GAL regulatory system and switching to a repressing glucose medium, we confronted yeast cells with a novel challenge they had not encountered before along their history in evolution.Adaptation to this challenge involved a global transcriptional response of a sizeable fraction of the genome, which relaxed on the time scale of the population adaptation, of order of 10 generations.For a large fraction of the responding genes there is no simple biological interpretation, connecting them to the specific cellular demands imposed by the novel challenge.Strikingly, repeating the experiment did not reproduce similar transcription patterns neither in the transient phase nor in the adapted state in glucose.These results suggest that physiological selection operates on the new metabolic configurations generated by the non-specific large scale transcriptional response to eventually stabilize an adaptive state.
The recruitment of a gene to a foreign regulatory system is a major evolutionary event that can lead to novel phenotypes. However, the evolvability potential of cells depends on their ability to cope with challenges presented by gene recruitment. To study this ability, we combined synthetic gene recruitment with continuous culture and online measurements of the metabolic and regulatory dynamics over long timescales. The gene HIS3 from the histidine synthesis pathway was recruited to the GAL system, responsible for galactose utilization in the yeast S. cerevisiae. Following a switch from galactose to glucose-from induced to repressed conditions of the GAL system-in histidine-lacking chemostats (where the recruited HIS3 is essential), the regulatory system reprogrammed to adaptively tune HIS3 expression, allowing the cells to grow competitively in pure glucose. The adapted state was maintained for hundreds of generations in various environments. The timescales involved and the reproducibility of separate experiments render spontaneous mutations an unlikely underlying mechanism. Essentially all cells could adapt, excluding selection over a genetically variable population. The results reveal heritable adaptation induced by the exposure to glucose. They demonstrate that genetic regulatory networks have the potential to support highly demanding events of gene recruitment.
The expression of scaffoldin-anchoring genes and one of the major processive endoglucanases (CelS) from the cellulosome of Clostridium thermocellum has been shown to be dependent on the growth rate. For the present work, we studied the gene regulation of selected cellulosomal endoglucanases and a major xylanase in order to examine the previously observed substrate-linked alterations in cellulosome composition. For this purpose, the transcript levels of genes encoding endoglucanases CelB, CelG, and CelD and the family 10 xylanase XynC were determined in batch cultures, grown on either cellobiose or cellulose, and in carbon-limited continuous cultures at different dilution rates. Under all conditions tested, the transcript levels of celB and celG were at least 10-fold higher than that of celD. Like the major processive endoglucanase CelS, the transcript levels of these endoglucanase genes were also dependent on the growth rate. Thus, at a rate of 0.04 h ؊1 , the levels of celB, celG, and celD were threefold higher than those obtained in cultures grown at maximal rates (0.35 h ؊1 ) on cellobiose. In contrast, no clear correlation was observed between the transcript level of xynC and the growth rate-the levels remained relatively high, fluctuating between 30 and 50 transcripts per cell. The results suggest that the regulation of C. thermocellum endoglucanases is similar to that of the processive endoglucanase celS but differs from that of a major cellulosomal xylanase in that expression of the latter enzyme is independent of the growth rate.
The eukaryotic Hsp60 cytoplasmic chaperonin CCT (chaperonin containing the T-complex polypeptide-1) is essential for growth in budding yeast, and mutations in individual CCT subunits have been shown to affect assembly of tubulin and actin. The present research focused mainly on the expression of the CCT subunits, CCTalpha and CCTbeta, in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Previous studies showed that, unlike most other chaperones, CCT in yeast does not undergo induction following heat shock. In this study, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and protein levels of CCT subunits following exposure to low temperatures, were examined. The Northern blot analysis indicated a 3- to 4-fold increase in mRNA levels of CCTalpha and CCTbeta genes after cold shock at 4 degrees C. Interestingly, Western blot analysis showed that cold shock induces an increase in the CCTalpha protein, which is expressed at 10 degrees C, but not at 4 degrees C. Transfer of 4 degrees C cold-shocked cells to 10 degrees C induced a 5-fold increase in the CCTalpha protein level. By means of fluorescent immunostaining and confocal microscopy, we found CCTalpha to be localized in the cortex and the cell cytoplasm of S. cerevisiae. Localization of CCTalpha was not affected at low temperatures. Co-localization of CCT and filaments of actin and tubulin was not observed by microscopy. The induction pattern of the CCTalpha protein suggests that expression of the chaperonin may be primarily important during the recovery from low temperatures and the transition to growth at higher temperatures, as found for other Hsps during the recovery phase from heat shock.
This study examines the capability of high-school students to solve problems related to the Computational model of finite deterministic automata. Specifically, we compared student's achievements when solving verbal "story like" questions to solving the similar problem but formulated mathematically. A questionnaire composed of two questions, each formulated in two ways (verbal and mathematical), was given to the students as part of an exam. Generally, average or weak students got lower grades when they had to solve verbal questions. It was also found that the gap between the student achievements in verbal vs. mathematical questions widened for weaker students and when the teaching and practicing time was reduced. The student mistakes originated from their difficulties to extract a formal language from the story and to translate constrains given in the verbal formulation of the questions correctly. It was also found that when the students were unfamiliar to the content and the context of the story they had difficulties comprehending the text. This in turn caused the student to inaccurately describe the formal language (alphabet and constrains) and thus to design an incorrect automata.
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