Changes in regulation of ribosomal protein synthesis during vegetative growth and sporulation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

When diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells logarithmically growing in acetate medium were placed in sporulation medium, the relative rates of synthesis of 40 or more individual ribosomal proteins (r-proteins) were coordinately depressed to approximately 20% of those of growing cells. These new depressed rates remained constant for at least 10 h into sporulation. If yeast nitrogen base was added 4 yh after the beginning of sporulation to shift the cells back to vegetative growth, the original relative rates of r-protein synthesis were rapidly reestablished. this upshift in the rates occurred even in diploids homozygous for the regulatory mutation rna2 at the restrictive temperature for this mutation (34 degrees C). However, once these mutant cells began to bud and grow at 34 degrees C, the phenotype of rna2 was expressed and the syntheses of r-proteins were again coordinately depressed. At least one protein whose rate of synthesis was not depressed by rna2 in vegetative cells did have a decreased rate of synthesis during sporulation. Another r-protein whose synthesis was depressed by rna2 maintained a high rate of synthesis at the beginning of sporulation. These data suggest that the mechanism responsible for coordinate control of r-protein synthesis during sporulation does not require the gene product of RNA2 and thus defines a separate mechanism by which r-proteins are coordinately controlled in S. cerevisiae.