EC Accepts, published online ahead of print on 19 June 2009

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Eukaryotic Cell doi:10.1128/EC.00078-09
Copyright (c) 2009, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Functional Genomics of Adhesion, Invasion and Mycelial Formation in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

James Dodgson, Hema Avula, Kwang-Lae Hoe, Dong-Uk Kim, Han-Oh Park, Jacqueline Hayles, and John Armstrong^*

School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, England; Genome Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yusong, Daejeon, Republic of Korea; Bioneer Corporation, 49-3 Munpyeong-dong, Daedeok-gu, Daejeon 306-220, Republic of Korea; Cancer Research UK, 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PX, England

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: J.Armstrong{at}sussex.ac.uk.

Investigation into the switch between single-celled and filamentous forms of fungi may provide insights into cell polarity, differentiation, and fungal pathogenicity. At the molecular level, much of this investigation has fallen on two closely related budding yeasts, Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Recently the much more distant fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe was shown to form invasive filaments after nitrogen limitation (Amoah-Buahin, E., N. Bone, and J. Armstrong. 2005. Eukaryot. Cell 4:1287-1297) and this genetically tractable organism provides an alternative system for the study of dimorphic growth. Here we describe a second mode of mycelial formation of S. pombe, on rich media. A screen of a S. pombe haploid deletion library identified twelve genes required for mycelial development, which encode potential transcription factors, orthologues of S. cerevisiae Sec14p and Tlg2p, and the formin For3, among others. These were further grouped into two phenotypic classes representing different stages of the process. We show that galactose-dependent cell adhesion and actin assembly are both required for mycelial formation, and mutants lacking a range of genes controlling cell polarity all produce mycelia, but with radically altered morphology.