Abstract
Nuclear size correlates with cell size, but the mechanism by which this scaling is achieved is not known. Here we screen fission yeast gene deletion mutants to identify essential factors involved in this process. Our screen has identified 25 essential factors that alter nuclear size, and our analysis has implicated RNA processing and LINC complexes in nuclear size control. This study has revealed lower and more extreme higher nuclear size phenotypes and has identified global cellular processes and specific structural nuclear components important for nuclear size control.
Highlights
Study of sea urchin embryos led Hertwig more than a century ago to the Kern-Plasma-relation theory, which proposes that the ratio between nuclear size and cell size is constant [1]
We have exploited the genetic tractability of fission yeast to carry out a systematic genetic screen of deleted essential genes to identify those with aberrant nuclear size phenotypes
Our study has revealed 25 novel genes that influence nuclear size and our bioinformatic analyses have implicated both RNA processing and protein complexes connecting nuclear chromatin to the cytoskeleton in nuclear size control
Summary
Study of sea urchin embryos led Hertwig more than a century ago to the Kern-Plasma-relation theory, which proposes that the ratio between nuclear size and cell size is constant [1]. A constant ratio between nuclear and cell size has since been reported in many cell types from unicellular yeasts and Tetrahymena to cells of multicellular animals and plants [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Genetic screen for essential nuclear size control factors. Frequency 96/3377 160/3377 258/3377 849/3377 2/3377 2/3377 260/3377 260/3377 779/3377 627/3377 1082/3377 Fold enrichment 2.6 p value. GO annotation categories enriched in genes deleted in 33 nuclear size mutants relative to background population of all essential and non-essential genes screened (p 0.01) are shown. In mutants with low N/C ratio, the level of expression of genes encoding proteins required for lipid synthesis may be reduced, limiting nuclear size
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