Kinetics of Formation and Asymmetrical Distribution of Hsp104-Bound Protein Aggregates in Yeast.

Budding yeast cells have a finite replicative life span; that is, a mother cell produces only a limited number of daughter cells before it slows division and dies. Despite the gradual aging of the mother cell, all daughters are born rejuvenated and enjoy a full replicative lifespan. It has been proposed that entry of mother cells into senescence is driven by the progressive accumulation and retention of damaged material, including protein aggregates. This additionally allows the daughter cells to be born damage free. However, the mechanism underlying such asymmetrical segregation of protein aggregates by mother and daughter cells remains controversial, in part because of the difficulties inherent in tracking the dynamics and fate of protein aggregates in vivo. To overcome such limitations, we have developed single-cell real-time imaging methodology to track the formation of heat-induced protein aggregates in otherwise unperturbed dividing cells. By combining the imaging data with a simple computational model of protein aggregation, we show that the establishment of asymmetrical partitioning of protein aggregates upon division is driven by the large bud-specific dilution rate associated with polarized growth and the absence of significant mother/bud exchange of protein aggregates during the budded phase of the cell cycle. To our knowledge, this study sheds new light on the mechanism of establishment of a segregation bias, which can be accounted for by simple physical arguments.

Pulse propagation by a capacitive mechanism drives embryonic blood flow.

Pulsatile flow is a universal feature of the blood circulatory system in vertebrates and can lead to diseases when abnormal. In the embryo, blood flow forces stimulate vessel remodeling and stem cell proliferation. At these early stages, when vessels lack muscle cells, the heart is valveless and the Reynolds number (Re) is low, few details are available regarding the mechanisms controlling pulses propagation in the developing vascular network. Making use of the recent advances in optical-tweezing flow probing approaches, fast imaging and elastic-network viscous flow modeling, we investigated the blood-flow mechanics in the zebrafish main artery and show how it modifies the heart pumping input to the network. The movement of blood cells in the embryonic artery suggests that elasticity of the network is an essential factor mediating the flow. Based on these observations, we propose a model for embryonic blood flow where arteries act like a capacitor in a way that reduces heart effort. These results demonstrate that biomechanics is key in controlling early flow propagation and argue that intravascular elasticity has a role in determining embryonic vascular function.

Two routes to senescence revealed by real-time analysis of telomerase-negative single lineages.

In eukaryotes, telomeres cap chromosome ends to maintain genomic stability. Failure to maintain telomeres leads to their progressive erosion and eventually triggers replicative senescence, a pathway that protects against unrestricted cell proliferation. However, the mechanisms underlying the variability and dynamics of this pathway are still elusive. Here we use a microfluidics-based live-cell imaging assay to investigate replicative senescence in individual Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell lineages following telomerase inactivation. We characterize two mechanistically distinct routes to senescence. Most lineages undergo an abrupt and irreversible switch from a replicative to an arrested state, consistent with telomeres reaching a critically short length. In contrast, other lineages experience frequent and stochastic reversible arrests, consistent with the repair of accidental telomere damage by Pol32, a subunit of polymerase δ required for break-induced replication and for post-senescence survival. Thus, at the single-cell level, replicative senescence comprises both deterministic cell fates and chaotic cell division dynamics.

Aging yeast cells undergo a sharp entry into senescence unrelated to the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential.

In budding yeast, a mother cell can produce a finite number of daughter cells before it stops dividing and dies. Such entry into senescence is thought to result from a progressive decline in physiological function, including a loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨ). Here, we developed a microfluidic device to monitor the dynamics of cell division and ΔΨ in real time at single-cell resolution. We show that cells do not enter senescence gradually but rather undergo an abrupt transition to a slowly dividing state. Moreover, we demonstrate that the decline in ΔΨ, which is observed only in a fraction of cells, is not responsible for entry into senescence. Rather, the loss of ΔΨ is an age-independent and heritable process that leads to clonal senescence and is therefore incompatible with daughter cell rejuvenation. These results emphasize the importance of quantitative single-cell measurements to decipher the causes of cellular aging.

PTEN controls junction lengthening and stability during cell rearrangement in epithelial tissue.

Planar cell rearrangements control epithelial tissue morphogenesis and cellular pattern formation. They lead to the formation of new junctions whose length and stability determine the cellular pattern of tissues. Here, we show that during Drosophila wing development the loss of the tumor suppressor PTEN disrupts cell rearrangements by preventing the lengthening of newly formed junctions that become unstable and keep on rearranging. We demonstrate that the failure to lengthen and to stabilize is caused by the lack of a decrease of Myosin II and Rho-kinase concentration at the newly formed junctions. This defect results in a heterogeneous cortical contractility at cell junctions that disrupts regular hexagonal pattern formation. By identifying PTEN as a specific regulator of junction lengthening and stability, our results uncover how a homogenous distribution of cortical contractility along the cell cortex is restored during cell rearrangement to control the formation of epithelial cellular pattern.