What can stressed yeast teach us about fundamental processes in the cell? A lot, according to EMBL Heidelberg's Mattei Team. The team studies, among other topics, how cells adapt to stress—such as nutrient deprivation.
One of their favorite test subjects is the yeast species S. pombe, used for centuries in traditional brewing. As a eukaryote, it's in many ways similar to human cells, so biologists often use it as a model organism to study fundamental cellular processes.
Ribosomes turn upside-down in hungry cells
Ribosomes are the cell's heavyweight molecular machinery that produces proteins. It turned out, however, that in hungry yeast cells, the ribosomes that crowd on the surface of the mitochondria don't produce anything. They are hibernating.
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