Translational control of gene expression noise and its relationship to ageing in yeast

Abstract

Gene expression noise influences organism evolution and fitness but is poorly understood. There is increasing evidence that the functional roles of components of the translation machinery influence noise intensity. In addition, modulation of the activities of at least some of these same components affects the replicative lifespan of a broad spectrum of organisms. In a novel comparative approach, we modulate the activities of the translation initiation factors eIFG1 and eIF4G2, both of which are involved in the process of recruiting ribosomal 43S preinitiation complexes to the 5' end of eukaryotic mRNAs. We show that tagging of the cell wall using a fluorescent dye allows us to follow gene expression noise as different yeast strains progress through successive cycles of replicative ageing. This procedure reveals a relationship between global protein synthesis rate and gene expression noise (cell-to-cell heterogeneity), which is accompanied by a parallel correlation between gene expression noise and the replicative age of mother cells. An alternative approach, based on microfluidics, confirms the interdependence between protein synthesis rate, gene expression noise and ageing. We additionally show that it is important to characterize the influence of the design of the microfluidic device on the nutritional state of the cells during such experiments. Analysis of the noise data derived from flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy measurements indicates that both the intrinsic and the extrinsic noise components increase as a function of ageing.