Analysis of the significance of a periodic, cell size-controlled doubling in rates of macromolecular synthesis for the control of balanced exponential growth of fission yeast cells.

Mutant strains of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe are available which divide at smaller mean sizes than wild type. Earlier work by the present authors has shown that all these strains double their rates of polyadenylated messenger RNA synthesis as a step once in each cell cycle. The smaller the cell, the later in the cycle is the doubling in rate of synthesis. Strains of all sizes, however, double their synthetic rate when at the same threshold size. We show here that the differences in cell cycle stage of doubling in rate of polyadenylated messenger RNA synthesis are enough to explain the reduced mean steady state polyadenylated messenger RNA contents of the smaller strains. The cell size-related control over doubling in rate of synthesis is also shown to maintain the mean polyadenylated messenger RNA content as a constant proportion of cell mass, irrespective of cell size. This control thus allows cells to maintain balanced exponential growth, even when absolute growth rate per cell is altered by mutation. It is also shown that the concentration of polyadenylated messenger RNA itself could act as a monitor of the threshold size triggering the doubling in rate of synthesis in each cell cycle.