Sulfur sequestration promotes multicellularity during nutrient limitation

Beth Kelly, Gustavo E. Carrizo, Joy Edwards-Hicks, David E. Sanin, Michal A. Stanczak, Chantal Priesnitz, Lea J. Flachsmann, Jonathan D. Curtis, Gerhard Mittler, Yaarub Musa, Thomas Becker, Joerg M. Buescher and Erika L. Pearce ()
Additional contact information
Beth Kelly: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Gustavo E. Carrizo: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Joy Edwards-Hicks: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
David E. Sanin: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Michal A. Stanczak: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Chantal Priesnitz: University of Freiburg
Lea J. Flachsmann: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Jonathan D. Curtis: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Gerhard Mittler: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Yaarub Musa: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Thomas Becker: University of Bonn
Joerg M. Buescher: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics
Erika L. Pearce: Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics

Nature, 2021, vol. 591, issue 7850, 471-476

Abstract: Abstract The behaviour of Dictyostelium discoideum depends on nutrients1. When sufficient food is present these amoebae exist in a unicellular state, but upon starvation they aggregate into a multicellular organism2,3. This biology makes D. discoideum an ideal model for investigating how fundamental metabolism commands cell differentiation and function. Here we show that reactive oxygen species—generated as a consequence of nutrient limitation—lead to the sequestration of cysteine in the antioxidant glutathione. This sequestration limits the use of the sulfur atom of cysteine in processes that contribute to mitochondrial metabolism and cellular proliferation, such as protein translation and the activity of enzymes that contain an iron–sulfur cluster. The regulated sequestration of sulfur maintains D. discoideum in a nonproliferating state that paves the way for multicellular development. This mechanism of signalling through reactive oxygen species highlights oxygen and sulfur as simple signalling molecules that dictate cell fate in an early eukaryote, with implications for responses to nutrient fluctuations in multicellular eukaryotes.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03270-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:591:y:2021:i:7850:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03270-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03270-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().