This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twelve-month research fellowship by Dr. Felipe O. Bendezu to work with Dr. Sophie Martin at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Polarized growth is a critical process carried out by many biological systems. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, vegetatively growing cells utilize the microtubule and microfilament cytoskeletons to coordinate polarized growth to the cell tips to increase in length and to mid-cell for division. Very little is known, however, about how fission yeast coordinate polarized growth during mating, or sexual reproduction. Preliminary evidence suggests both the microtubule and microfilament networks are required for establishing matinginduced polarized growth. Additionally, a member of the actin-nucleating family of formins has been implicated in the cell fusion event following cell-cell contact. This project will investigate the mechanisms governing polarized growth and cell fusion during mating of fission yeast. Using the powerful tools of fission yeast genetics and cell biology, the PI will 1) define the organization and role of the mating cytoskeleton through live-cell imaging, 2) investigate the localization and function of formins during mating and 3) identify additional factors required for mating-induced polarized growth in a genome-wide screen.
This work will provide insight into the poorly understood process of polarized growth during mating of fission yeast. The fission yeast has been established as a powerful model system to decipher fundamental mechanisms of cell proliferation and polarization. Indeed, many of the mechanisms governing cytoskeletal function have been conserved from yeast to man, which remarkably share over 70% of their genes. Since many of the components important for polarized growth have been conserved through evolution, this work is likely to further our understanding of conserved mechanisms of cell polarization in more complex systems. This fellowship will provide the PI with the opportunity to work with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities under the guidance of a leader in the field of cell polarity and to develop an original research project that he can pursue independently in the future.
