Binucleate germ cells in Caenorhabditis elegans are removed by physiological apoptosis.

Cell death plays a major role during C. elegans oogenesis, where over half of the oogenic germ cells die in a process termed physiological apoptosis. How germ cells are selected for physiological apoptosis, or instead become oocytes, is not understood. Most oocytes produce viable embryos when apoptosis is blocked, suggesting that physiological apoptosis does not function to cull defective germ cells. Instead, cells targeted for apoptosis may function as nurse cells; the germline is syncytial, and all germ cells appear to contribute cytoplasm to developing oocytes. C. elegans has been a leading model for the genetics and molecular biology of apoptosis and phagocytosis, but comparatively few studies have examined the cell biology of apoptotic cells. We used live imaging to identify and examine pre-apoptotic germ cells in the adult gonad. After initiating apoptosis, germ cells selectively export their mitochondria into the shared pool of syncytial cytoplasm; this transport appears to use the microtubule motor kinesin. The apoptotic cells then shrink as they expel most of their remaining cytoplasm, and close off from the syncytium. Shortly thereafter the apoptotic cells restructure their microtubule and actin cytoskeletons, possibly to maintain cell integrity; the microtubules form a novel, cortical array of stabilized microtubules, and actin and cofilin organize into giant cofilin-actin rods. We discovered that some apoptotic germ cells are binucleate; the binucleate germ cells can develop into binucleate oocytes in apoptosis-defective strains, and appear capable of producing triploid offspring. Our results suggest that the nuclear layer of the germline syncytium becomes folded during mitosis and growth, and that binucleate cells arise as the layer unfolds or everts; all of the binucleate cells are subsequently removed by apoptosis. These results show that physiological apoptosis targets at least two distinct populations of germ cells, and that the apoptosis machinery efficiently recognizes cells with two nuclei.

Developmental Coordination of Gamete Differentiation with Programmed Cell Death in Sporulating Yeast.

The gametogenesis program of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as sporulation, employs unusual internal meiotic divisions, after which all four meiotic products differentiate within the parental cell. We showed previously that sporulation is typically accompanied by the destruction of discarded immature meiotic products through their exposure to proteases released from the mother cell vacuole, which undergoes an apparent programmed rupture. Here we demonstrate that vacuolar rupture contributes to de facto programmed cell death (PCD) of the meiotic mother cell itself. Meiotic mother cell PCD is accompanied by an accumulation of depolarized mitochondria, organelle swelling, altered plasma membrane characteristics, and cytoplasmic clearance. To ensure that the gametes survive the destructive consequences of developing within a cell that is executing PCD, we hypothesized that PCD is restrained from occurring until spores have attained a threshold degree of differentiation. Consistent with this hypothesis, gene deletions that perturb all but the most terminal postmeiotic spore developmental stages are associated with altered PCD. In these mutants, meiotic mother cells exhibit a delay in vacuolar rupture and then appear to undergo an alternative form of PCD associated with catastrophic consequences for the underdeveloped spores. Our findings reveal yeast sporulation as a context of bona fide PCD that is developmentally coordinated with gamete differentiation.

Programmed nuclear destruction in yeast: self-eating by vacuolar lysis.

Studies of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have provided many of the most important insights into the mechanisms of autophagy, which are common to all eukaryotes. However, investigation of yeast self-destruction pathways, including autophagy and programmed cell death, has been almost exclusively restricted to cells undergoing vegetative growth, leaving very little exploration of their functions during developmental transitions in the yeast life cycle. We have recently discovered that whole nuclei are subject to programmed destruction during yeast gametogenesis. Programmed nuclear destruction (PND) possesses characteristics of apoptosis in the form of DNA cleavage by endonuclease G, and involves bulk protein turnover through an unusual autophagic pathway involving lysis of the vacuole rather than delivery of components to it through macroautophagy. We thus illuminate an example of developmentally programmed cellular "self-eating" in yeast, which is associated with the rupture of a lytic organelle, reminiscent of programmed cell death mechanisms in plants and animals.

Developmentally programmed nuclear destruction during yeast gametogenesis.

Autophagy controls cellular catabolism in diverse eukaryotes and modulates programmed cell death in plants and animals. While studies of the unicellular yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have provided fundamental insights into the mechanisms of autophagy, the roles of cell death pathways in yeast are less well understood. Here, we describe widespread developmentally programmed nuclear destruction (PND) events that occur during yeast gametogenesis. PND is executed through apoptotic-like DNA fragmentation in coordination with an unusual form of autophagy that is most similar to mammalian lysosomal membrane permeabilization and mega-autophagy, a form of plant autophagic cell death. Undomesticated strains execute gametogenic PND broadly in maturing colonies to the apparent benefit of sibling cells, confirming its prominence during the yeast life cycle. Our results reveal that diverse cell-death-related processes converge during gametogenesis in a microbe distantly related to plants or animals, highlighting gametogenesis as a process during which programmed cell death mechanisms may have evolved.