Galactose metabolic genes in yeast respond to a ratio of galactose and glucose
Abstract
Almost all biological systems need to respond to multiple simultaneous inputs. In yeast catabolite repression, a textbook model for signaling integration, the preferred carbohydrate glucose is thought to inhibit the induction of galactose genes when above a threshold concentration. Instead, we show that galactose metabolic genes induction depends on the ratio of galactose and glucose. Surprisingly, a critical portion of the information processing that determines the ratio response occurs upstream of the canonical signaling pathway. The use of modern combinatorial approaches has thus revealed a new signal processing paradigm that may be common throughout biology.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 20, 2015
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1418058112
Entities
People
- Christopher J Marx
- John Ingraham
- Jue Wang
- Michael Springer
- Renan Escalante-chong
- Sean M. Carroll
- Yonatan Savir
Organizations
- Harvard Medical School
- Harvard University
- National Science Foundation
- United States Department of Defense
- University of Idaho