Increases in cell size at START caused by hyperactivation of the cAMP pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, passage through START, which commits cells to a new round of cell division, requires growth to a critical size. To examine the effect of hyperactivation of the cAMP pathway on cell size at START, a strain was constructed that is able to respond to exogenously added cAMP. In the presence of cAMP, this strain showed increased cell volume at bud emergence, suggesting that the critical cell size necessary for START is increased. In addition, a mutation that results in unregulated cAMP-dependent protein kinase (bcy1) caused increased cell size at START. These results indicate that hyperactivation of the cAMP pathway causes increases in cell size through cAMP-dependent protein kinase. Cells carrying a hyperactive allele of CLN3 (CLN3-2) also showed increased size at START in the presence of cAMP. These cells retained resistance to alpha factor, however, suggesting that increases in cell size by cAMP are not due to a reduction of Cln3 activity. The observed increases in cell size due to hyperactivation of the cAMP pathway suggest that cell size modulation by nutrient conditions may be associated with a change of the activity of the cAMP pathway.