Symmetrically Dividing Cells of the Fission Yeast Schizosaccharomyces Pombe Do Age

From DNA damage to mutations: All roads lead to aging

Damage to the repository of genetic information in cells has plagued life since its very beginning 3-4 billion years ago. Initially, in the absence of an ozone layer, especially damage from solar UV radiation must have been frequent, with other sources, most notably endogenous sources related to cell metabolism, gaining in importance over time. To cope with this high frequency of damage to the increasingly long DNA molecules that came to encode the growing complexity of cellular functions in cells, DNA repair evolved as one of the earliest genetic traits. Then as now, errors during the repair of DNA damage generated mutations, which provide the substrate for evolution by natural selection. With the emergence of multicellular organisms also the soma became a target of DNA damage and mutations. In somatic cells selection against the adverse effects of DNA damage is greatly diminished, especially in postmitotic cells after the age of first reproduction. Based on an abundance of evidence, DNA damage is now considered as the single most important driver of the degenerative processes that collectively cause aging. Here I will first briefly review the evidence for DNA damage as a cause of aging since the beginning of life. Then, after discussing the possible direct adverse effects of DNA damage and its cellular responses, I will provide an overview of the considerable progress that has recently been made in analyzing a major consequence of DNA damage in humans and other complex organisms: somatic mutations and the resulting genome mosaicism. Recent advances in studying somatic mutagenesis and genome mosaicism in different human and animal tissues will be discussed with a focus on the possible mechanisms through which loss of DNA sequence integrity could cause age-related functional decline and disease.

Aging and immortality in unicellular species

It has been historically thought that in conditions that permit growth, most unicellular species do not to age. This was particularly thought to be the case for symmetrically dividing species, as such species lack a clear distinction between the soma and the germline. Despite this, studies of the symmetrically dividing species Escherichia coli and Schizosaccharomyces pombe have recently started to challenge this notion. They indicate that E. coli and S. pombe do age, but only when subjected to environmental stress. If true, this suggests that aging may be widespread among microbial species in general, and that studying aging in microbes may inform other long-standing questions in aging. This review examines the recent evidence for and against replicative aging in symmetrically dividing unicellular organisms, the mechanisms that underlie aging, why aging evolved in these species, and how microbial aging fits into the context of other questions in aging.

Aging, mortality, and the fast growth trade-off of Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Replicative aging has been demonstrated in asymmetrically dividing unicellular organisms, seemingly caused by unequal damage partitioning. Although asymmetric segregation and inheritance of potential aging factors also occur in symmetrically dividing species, it nevertheless remains controversial whether this results in aging. Based on large-scale single-cell lineage data obtained by time-lapse microscopy with a microfluidic device, in this report, we demonstrate the absence of replicative aging in old-pole cell lineages of Schizosaccharomyces pombe cultured under constant favorable conditions. By monitoring more than 1,500 cell lineages in 7 different culture conditions, we showed that both cell division and death rates are remarkably constant for at least 50–80 generations. Our measurements revealed that the death rate per cellular generation increases with the division rate, pointing to a physiological trade-off with fast growth under balanced growth conditions. We also observed the formation and inheritance of Hsp104-associated protein aggregates, which are a potential aging factor in old-pole cell lineages, and found that these aggregates exhibited a tendency to preferentially remain at the old poles for several generations. However, the aggregates were eventually segregated from old-pole cells upon cell division and probabilistically allocated to new-pole cells. We found that cell deaths were typically preceded by sudden acceleration of protein aggregation; thus, a relatively large amount of protein aggregates existed at the very ends of the dead cell lineages. Our lineage tracking analyses, however, revealed that the quantity and inheritance of protein aggregates increased neither cellular generation time nor cell death initiation rates. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that unusually large amounts of protein aggregates induced by oxidative stress exposure did not result in aging; old-pole cells resumed normal growth upon stress removal, despite the fact that most of them inherited significant quantities of aggregates. These results collectively indicate that protein aggregates are not a major determinant of triggering cell death in S. pombe and thus cannot be an appropriate molecular marker or index for replicative aging under both favorable and stressful environmental conditions.

Multicellular organisms universally senesce and must produce rejuvenated progenies in order to transmit life. Although similar age-related deterioration in physiological functions and reproduction is also found in unicellular organisms that divide asymmetrically to produce morphologically distinct aged and younger cells, it has been unclear whether symmetrically dividing microbes—such as fission yeast—exhibit the same traits. Using long-term live-cell microscopy combined with a microfluidic device, we monitor the growth and death of a large number of fission yeast cells and demonstrate the existence of aging-free lineages. These lineages are, however, not immortal, and the probability of death increases as the cells grow more rapidly; thus, the “live fast, die fast” trade-off exists in fission yeast. We further characterize the segregation and inheritance of protein aggregates, which are commonly thought of as “aging factors.” The aging-free lineages bear the aggregate load for some generations with no apparent adverse effects on growth. We also show that there is no threshold amount of protein aggregate above which cells are destined to death in both normal and stressed conditions: protein aggregate is thus not a direct initiation signal for cell death. Our data reveal that protein aggregation might not be an appropriate index for aging and that we should revisit its role in cell physiology.

An aging-independent replicative lifespan in a symmetrically dividing eukaryote

The replicative lifespan (RLS) of a cell-defined as the number of cell divisions before death-has informed our understanding of the mechanisms of cellular aging. However, little is known about aging and longevity in symmetrically dividing eukaryotic cells because most prior studies have used budding yeast for RLS studies. Here, we describe a multiplexed fission yeast lifespan micro-dissector (multFYLM) and an associated image processing pipeline for performing high-throughput and automated single-cell micro-dissection. Using the multFYLM, we observe continuous replication of hundreds of individual fission yeast cells for over seventy-five generations. Surprisingly, cells die without the classic hallmarks of cellular aging, such as progressive changes in size, doubling time, or sibling health. Genetic perturbations and drugs can extend the RLS via an aging-independent mechanism. Using a quantitative model to analyze these results, we conclude that fission yeast does not age and that cellular aging and replicative lifespan can be uncoupled in a eukaryotic cell.

Asymmetric segregation of damaged cellular components in spatially structured multicellular organisms

The asymmetric distribution of damaged cellular components has been observed in species ranging from fission yeast to humans. To study the potential advantages of damage segregation, we have developed a mathematical model describing ageing mammalian tissue, that is, a multicellular system of somatic cells that do not rejuvenate at cell division. To illustrate the applicability of the model, we specifically consider damage incurred by mutations to mitochondrial DNA, which are thought to be implicated in the mammalian ageing process. We show analytically that the asymmetric distribution of damaged cellular components reduces the overall damage level and increases the longevity of the cell population. Motivated by the experimental reports of damage segregation in human embryonic stem cells, dividing symmetrically with respect to cell-fate, we extend the model to consider spatially structured systems of cells. Imposing spatial structure reduces, but does not eliminate, the advantage of asymmetric division over symmetric division. The results suggest that damage partitioning could be a common strategy for reducing the accumulation of damage in a wider range of cell types than previously thought.

Fission yeast does not age under favorable conditions, but does so after stress

BACKGROUND

Many unicellular organisms age: as time passes, they divide more slowly and ultimately die. In budding yeast, asymmetric segregation of cellular damage results in aging mother cells and rejuvenated daughters. We hypothesize that the organisms in which this asymmetry is lacking, or can be modulated, may not undergo aging.

RESULTS

We performed a complete pedigree analysis of microcolonies of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe growing from a single cell. When cells were grown under favorable conditions, none of the lineages exhibited aging, which is defined as a consecutive increase in division time and increased death probability. Under favorable conditions, few cells died, and their death was random and sudden rather than following a gradual increase in division time. Cell death correlated with the inheritance of Hsp104-associated protein aggregates. After stress, the cells that inherited large aggregates aged, showing a consecutive increase in division time and an increased death probability. Their sisters, who inherited little or no aggregates, did not age.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that S. pombe does not age under favorable growth conditions, but does so under stress. This transition appears to be passive rather than active and results from the formation of a single large aggregate, which segregates asymmetrically at the subsequent cell division. We argue that this damage-induced asymmetric segregation has evolved to sacrifice some cells so that others may survive unscathed after severe environmental stresses.

Evolution of asymmetric damage segregation : a modelling approach

Mother cell-specific ageing is a well-known phenomenon in budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Asymmetric segregation of damage and its accumulation in the mother cell has been proposed as one important mechanism. There are, however, unicellular organisms such as the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which replicates with almost no asymmetry of segregation of damage and the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans, which falls around the middle of the segregation spectrum far from both complete symmetry and complete asymmetry. The ultimate evolutionary cause that determines the way damage segregates in a given organism is not known. Here we develop a mathematical model to examine the selective forces that drive the evolution of asymmetry and discover the conditions in which symmetry is the optimal strategy. Three main processes are included in the model: protein synthesis (growth), protein damage, and degradation of damage. We consider, for the first time, the costs to the cell that might accompany the evolution of asymmetry and incorporate them into the model along with known trade-offs between reproductive and maintenance investments and their energy requirements. The model provides insight into the relationship between ecology and cellular trade-off physiology in the context of unicellular ageing, and applications of the model may extend to multicellular organisms.

Genetic approaches to aging in budding and fission yeasts: new connections and new opportunities

Yeasts are powerful model systems to examine the evolutionarily conserved aspects of eukaryotic aging because they maintain many of the same core cellular signaling pathways and essential organelles as human cells. We constructed a strain of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae that could monitor the distribution of proteins involved in heterochromatic silencing and aging, and isolated mutants that alter this distribution. The largest class of such mutants cause defects in mitochondrial function, and appear to cause changes in nuclear silencing separate from the well-known Rtg2p-dependent pathway that alters nuclear transcription in response to the loss of the mitochondrial genome. Mutants that inactivate the ATP2 gene, which encodes the ATPase subunit of the mitochondrial F(1)F(0)-ATPase, were isolated twice in our screen and identify a lifespan extending pathway in a gene that is conserved in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The budding yeast S. cerevisiae S. cerevisiae has been used with great success to identify other lifespan-extending pathways in screens using surrogate phenotypes such as stress resistance or silencing to identify random mutants, or in high throughput screens that utilize the deletion strain set resource. However, the direct selection of long-lived mutants from a pool of random mutants is more challenging. We have established a new chronological aging assay for the evolutionarily distant fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe that recapitulates aspects of aging conserved in all eukaryotes. We have constructed a novel S. pombe S. pombe DNA insertion mutant bank, and used it to show that we can directly select for a long-lived mutant. The use of both the budding and fission yeast systems should continue to facilitate the identification and validation of lifespan extending pathways that are conserved in humans.

Damage segregation at fissioning may increase growth rates: a superprocess model

A fissioning organism may purge unrepairable damage by bequeathing it preferentially to one of its daughters. Using the mathematical formalism of superprocesses, we propose a flexible class of analytically tractable models that allow quite general effects of damage on death rates and splitting rates and similarly general damage segregation mechanisms. We show that, in a suitable regime, the effects of randomness in damage segregation at fissioning are indistinguishable from those of randomness in the mechanism of damage accumulation during the organism's lifetime. Moreover, the optimal population growth is achieved for a particular finite, non-zero level of combined randomness from these two sources. In particular, when damage accumulates deterministically, optimal population growth is achieved by a moderately unequal division of damage between the daughters, while too little or too much division is sub-optimal. Connections are drawn both to recent experimental results on inheritance of damage in protozoans, and to theories of aging and resource division between siblings.