Newly identified prions in budding yeast, and their possible functions

Emily T. Crow*, Liming Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

59 Scopus citations

Abstract

Yeast prions are atypical genetic elements that are transmitted as heritable protein conformations. [PSI+], [URE3], and [PIN+] are three well-studied prions in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In the last three years, several additional prions have been reported in yeast, including [SWI+], [OCT+], [MCA], [GAR+], [MOT3+], [ISP+], and [NSI+]. The growing number of yeast prions suggests that protein-based inheritance might be a widespread biological phenomenon. In this review, we summarize the characteristics of each prion element, and discuss their potential functional roles in yeast biology.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)452-459
Number of pages8
JournalSeminars in Cell and Developmental Biology
Volume22
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2011

Keywords

  • Amyloid
  • Epigenetics
  • Prion
  • Protein aggregation
  • Yeast

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Developmental Biology
  • Cell Biology

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