The Effect of Lithium on the Budding Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae upon Stress Adaptation
Journal article, 2022

Lithium salts are used in the treatment of mood disorders, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. It has been shown to prolong life span in several phyla; however, not yet in budding yeast. In our study, we investigate the influence of lithium on yeast cells’ viability by characterizing protein aggregate formation, cell volume, and molecular crowding in the context of stress adaptation. While our data suggest a concentration-dependent growth inhibition caused by LiCl, we show an extended long-term survival rate as an effect of lithium addition upon glucose deprivation. We show that caloric restriction mitigates the negative impact of LiCl on cellular survival. Therefore, we suggest that lithium could affect glucose metabolism upon caloric restriction, which could explain the extended long-term survival observed in our study. We find furthermore that lithium chloride did not affect an immediate salt-induced Hsp104-dependent aggregate formation but cellular adaptation to H2 O2 and acute glucose starvation. We presume that different salt types and concentrations interfere with effective Hsp104 recruitment or its ATP-dependent disaggregase activity as a response to salt stress. This work provides novel details of Li+ effect on live eukaryotic cells which may also be applicable in further research on the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer’s, or other age-related diseases in humans.

Lithium

Yeast

Long-term sur-vival

Protein aggregation

Macromolecular crowding

Osmotic stress

Author

Patrick Philipp Reith

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Svenja Braam

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Niek Welkenhuysen

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

University of Gothenburg

Sarah Lecinski

University of York

Jack Shepherd

University of York

Chris Macdonald

University of York

Mark C. Leake

University of York

Stefan Hohmann

Sviatlana Shashkova

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Marija Cvijovic

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Microorganisms

20762607 (eISSN)

Vol. 10 3 590

Synthetic Circuits for Robust Orthogonal Production (SynCrop)

European Commission (EC) (EC/H2020/764591), 2018-01-01 -- 2021-12-31.

Subject Categories

Cell Biology

Cell and Molecular Biology

Medical Biotechnology (with a focus on Cell Biology (including Stem Cell Biology), Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry or Biopharmacy)

DOI

10.3390/microorganisms10030590

PubMed

35336166

More information

Latest update

1/3/2024 9