Quiescence is a ubiquitous cell cycle stage conserved from microbes through humans and is essential to normal cellular function and response to changing environmental conditions. We recently reported a massive repressive event associated with quiescence in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where Rpd3 establishes repressive chromatin structure that drives transcriptional shutoff [6]. Here, we describe i...

BACKGROUND Colorectal carcinogenesis is believed to be a multi-stage process that originates with a localized adenoma, which linearly progresses to an intra-mucosal carcinoma, to an invasive lesion, and finally to metastatic cancer. This progression model is supported by tissue culture and animal model studies, but it is difficult to reconcile with several well-established observations, princip...

BACKGROUND Cells release extracellular vesicles (ECVs) that can influence differentiation, modulate the immune response, promote coagulation, and induce metastasis. Many ECVs form by budding outwards from the plasma membrane, but the molecules that regulate budding are unknown. In ECVs, the outer leaflet of the membrane bilayer contains aminophospholipids that are normally sequestered to the in...

Alix and ESCRT proteins are required for membrane fission during viral budding and egress and during the abscission stage of cytokinesis. These common roles have suggested that Alix functions as an ESCRT protein, a conclusion challenged by the finding that unlike ESCRTs, which control the formation of multivesicular endosomes, Alix does not influence the degradation of the EGF receptor. We prev...

Cell polarization underlies many cellular and organismal functions. The GTPase Cdc42 orchestrates polarization in many contexts. In budding yeast, polarization is associated with a focus of Cdc42•GTP which is thought to self sustain by recruiting a complex containing Cla4, a Cdc42-binding effector, Bem1, a scaffold, and Cdc24, a Cdc42 GEF. Using optogenetics, we probe yeast polarization and fin...

Exocytosis is a highly ordered vesicle trafficking pathway that targets proteins to the plasma membrane for membrane addition or secretion. Research over the years has discovered many proteins that participate at various stages in the mammalian exocytotic pathway. At the early stage of exocytosis, co-atomer proteins and their respective adaptors and GTPases have been shown to play a role in the...