Characterization of the Prr1 response regulator with special reference to sexual development in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

The histidine (His)-to-Aspartate (Asp) phosphorelay is a paradigm of intracellular signaling systems through protein phosphorylation in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has three histidine kinases (Phk1/Mak2, Phk2/Mak3, and Phk3/Mak1), together with two response regulators (Mcs4 and Prr1). The results of recent extensive studies suggested that these His-to-Asp phosphorelay components are involved in oxidative stress responses through the transcriptional regulation of several scavenger genes for toxic free radicals. It was also suggested that they were somehow implicated in control of both the mitotic and meiotic cell proliferations. Among these S. pombe His-to-Asp phosphorelay components, however, the function of Prr1 is less clear. We here characterized a mutant, named prr1-D418N, specifying an altered Prr1 protein that presumably acts as a gain-of-function (or constitutive-active) mutant, with special reference to sexual development. The mutant cells showed a striking phenotype in that they underwent mating even in a nitrogen-sufficient medium, under which conditions the wild-type cells hardly did so. Furthermore, the mutant cells underwent mating very rapidly in a nitrogen-deficient medium. Under anaerobic (or micro-aerobic) growth conditions, the wild-type cells were not capable of undergoing sexual development even in a nitrogen-deficient medium. The prr1-D418N cells underwent mating efficiently under such anaerobic growth conditions. Taken these together, it was suggested that the function of Prr1 is closely linked to the well-characterized signaling pathways for induction of the sexual development, in a way that this response regulator regulates a critical step of the initiation of meiosis through activating the transcription of ste11+, mam2+, and mei2+, in S. pombe.