Stress responses in yeasts: what rules apply?

Abstract

Living organisms have evolved a complex network of mechanisms to face the unforeseen nutritional and environmental circumstances imposed on their natural habitats, commonly termed “stress”. To learn more about these mechanisms, several challenges are usually applied in the laboratory, namely nutrient starvation, heat shock, dehydration, oxidative exposures, etc. Yeasts are chosen as convenient models for studying stress phenomena because of their simple cellular organization and the amenability to genetic analysis. A vast scientific literature has recently appeared on the defensive cellular responses to stress. However, this plethora of studies covers quite different experimental conditions, making any conclusions open to dispute. In fact, the term “yeast stress” is rather confusing, since the same treatment may be very stressful or irrelevant, depending on the yeast. Customary expressions such as “gentle stress” (non-lethal) or “severe stress” (potentially lethal) should be precisely clarified. In turn, although prototypic yeasts share a common repertoire of signalling responsive pathways to stress, these are adapted to the specific ecological niche and biological activity of each particular species. What does “stress” really mean? Before we go any deeper, we have to define this uncertain meaning along with a proper explanation concerning the terms and conditions used in research on yeast stress.