The Msn2 mediated stress response : Survival based on "hedging your bet" and a dynamic interplay of transcription factor binding and nucleosome occupancy

• Yeast cell subjected to many different stresses elicit an acute transcriptional stress response mediated by the Msn2 transcription factor, which alters expression of both a stress specific-cohort of genes as well as a common cohort of genes that changes expression in a stereotypic fashion upon exposure to any of a wide variety of stresses. We have shown by dynamic single cell analysis that stresses regulate Msn2 activity through cytoplasm to nuclear relocalization but do so in an unusual way: stresses induce increased frequency of bursts of short-lived, recurrent periods of Msn2 nuclear localization with different stresses eliciting different patterns of bursts. Moreover, genetically identical cells subject to an identical stress can behave quite differently, with some cells mounting a robust nuclear occupancy of Msn2 while others show no nuclear localization at all. We have proposed that this idiosyncratic behavior allows populations of cells to “hedge their bet” as to what will be the optimum strategy for surviving the ensuing stress. We have used computational modeling and single cell analysis to determine that bursting is a consequence of noise in the stress signaling pathways amplified by the small number of Msn2 molecules in the cell. Moreover, we have applied genome wide chromatin immunoprecipitation and nucleosome profiling to address how different stresses determine where Msn2 binds under a particular stressful conditions, and thus what genes are regulated by that stress, and how that binding affects, and is affected by, nucleosome positioning and other transcription factor binding. These results provide in vivo validation of Widon's model of indirect cooperativity of transcription factor binding, mediated by partial unwinding of nucleosomes by one transcription factor to allow access for a second transcription factor to a previously occluded binding site. Finally, we have addressed the “bet hedging” hypothesis by showing that persistence of the Msn2-mediated stress response yields cell growth arrest and have identified the targets responsible for that growth arrest. We have applied experimental evolution paradigms to address the relative fitness of cells exhibiting stochastic stress responses versus those with a uniform response. In short, our results indicate that the stress response is complex and that complexity is critical for cell survival.

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MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinsk bioteknologi -- Medicinsk bioteknologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Medical Biotechnology -- Medical Biotechnology (hsv//eng)

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