Stress responses in yeasts: what rules apply?
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COMMENTARY
Stress responses in yeasts: what rules apply? Pilar González-Párraga · Ruth Sánchez-Fresneda · María Martínez-Esparza · Juan-Carlos Argüelles
Received: 2 October 2007 / Revised: 6 November 2007 / Accepted: 17 November 2007 / Published online: 8 December 2007 © Springer-Verlag 2007
Abstract Living organisms have evolved a complex network of mechanisms to face the unforeseen nutritional and environmental circumstances imposed on their natural habitats, commonly termed “stress”. To learn more about these mechanisms, several challenges are usually applied in the laboratory, namely nutrient starvation, heat shock, dehydration, oxidative exposures, etc. Yeasts are chosen as convenient models for studying stress phenomena because of their simple cellular organization and the amenability to genetic analysis. A vast scientiWc literature has recently appeared on the defensive cellular responses to stress. However, this plethora of studies covers quite diVerent experimental conditions, making any conclusions open to dispute. In fact, the term “yeast stress” is rather confusing, since the same treatment may be very stressful or irrelevant, depending on the yeast. Customary expressions such as “gentle stress” (non-lethal) or “severe stress” (potentially lethal) should be precisely clariWed. In turn, although prototypic yeasts share a common repertoire of signalling responsive pathways to stress, these are adapted to the
Communicated by Erko Stackebrandt. Dedicated to Prof. Rafael Sentandreu on the occasion of his 70th birthday and to celebrate his appointment as Emeritus Professor at the University of Valencia (Spain). P. González-Párraga · R. Sánchez-Fresneda · J.-C. Argüelles (&) Área de Microbiología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30071 Murcia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] M. Martínez-Esparza Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular B e Inmunología, Universidad de Murcia, 30071 Murcia, Spain
speciWc ecological niche and biological activity of each particular species. What does “stress” really mean? Before we go any deeper, we have to deWne this uncertain meaning along with a proper explanation concerning the terms and conditions used in research on yeast stress. Keywords Yeast · Stress responses · Trehalose · Heat shock · Oxidative stress · Hog1 · General response
Introduction Continuous and unforeseen biological and physical perturbations occur in the biosphere and organisms have to cope with them in a rapid and eYcient way. These anomalous disturbances are usually known as “stress” and an intensive research eVort has been put in by many laboratories in an attempt to mimic the naturally imposed conditions. Nevertheless, this concept is rather ambiguous, since it encompasses risks which might be termed as moderate, to other potentially life-threatening situations. Let us, Wrst, then, clarify what we denote by the word stress. We will brieXy discuss some particular examples taking as starting point the deWnition from a scientiWc dictionary, where stress is deWned as “a
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