Sarah Piccirillo, Andrew P Morgan, Andy Y Leon, Annika L Smith, Saul M Honigberg
{"title":"Investigating cell autonomy in microorganisms.","authors":"Sarah Piccirillo, Andrew P Morgan, Andy Y Leon, Annika L Smith, Saul M Honigberg","doi":"10.1007/s00294-022-01231-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cell-cell signaling in microorganisms is still poorly characterized. In this Methods paper, we describe a genetic procedure for detecting cell-nonautonomous genetic effects, and in particular cell-cell signaling, termed the chimeric colony assay (CCA). The CCA measures the effect of a gene on a biological response in a neighboring cell. This assay can measure cell autonomy for range of biological activities including transcript or protein accumulation, subcellular localization, and cell differentiation. To date, the CCA has been used exclusively to investigate colony patterning in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To demonstrate the wider potential of the assay, we applied this assay to two other systems: the effect of Grr1 on glucose repression of GAL1 transcription in yeast and the effect of rpsL on stop-codon translational readthrough in Escherichia coli. We also describe variations of the standard CCA that address specific aspects of cell-cell signaling, and we delineate essential controls for this assay. Finally, we discuss complementary approaches to the CCA. Taken together, this Methods paper demonstrates how genetic assays can reveal and explore the roles of cell-cell signaling in microbial processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":10918,"journal":{"name":"Current Genetics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101301/pdf/nihms-1802249.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Genetics","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-022-01231-5","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/2/4 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GENETICS & HEREDITY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Cell-cell signaling in microorganisms is still poorly characterized. In this Methods paper, we describe a genetic procedure for detecting cell-nonautonomous genetic effects, and in particular cell-cell signaling, termed the chimeric colony assay (CCA). The CCA measures the effect of a gene on a biological response in a neighboring cell. This assay can measure cell autonomy for range of biological activities including transcript or protein accumulation, subcellular localization, and cell differentiation. To date, the CCA has been used exclusively to investigate colony patterning in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To demonstrate the wider potential of the assay, we applied this assay to two other systems: the effect of Grr1 on glucose repression of GAL1 transcription in yeast and the effect of rpsL on stop-codon translational readthrough in Escherichia coli. We also describe variations of the standard CCA that address specific aspects of cell-cell signaling, and we delineate essential controls for this assay. Finally, we discuss complementary approaches to the CCA. Taken together, this Methods paper demonstrates how genetic assays can reveal and explore the roles of cell-cell signaling in microbial processes.
期刊介绍:
Current Genetics publishes genetic, genomic, molecular and systems-level analysis of eukaryotic and prokaryotic microorganisms and cell organelles. All articles are peer-reviewed. The journal welcomes submissions employing any type of research approach, be it analytical (aiming at a better understanding), applied (aiming at practical applications), synthetic or theoretical.
Current Genetics no longer accepts manuscripts describing the genome sequence of mitochondria/chloroplast of a small number of species. Manuscripts covering sequence comparisons and analyses that include a large number of species will still be considered.