Dimethyl sulfoxide exposure facilitates phospholipid biosynthesis and cellular membrane proliferation in yeast cells

Me2SO is a polar solvent that is widely used in biochemistry, pharmacology, and industry. Although there are several reports in the literature concerning the biological effects of Me2SO, the total cellular response remains unclear. In this paper, DNA microarray technology combined with the hierarchical clustering bioinformatics tool was used to assess the effects of Me2SO on yeast cells. We found that yeast exposed to Me2SO increased phospholipid biosynthesis through up-regulated gene expression. It was confirmed by Northern blotting that the level of INO1 and OPI3 gene transcripts, encoding key enzymes in phospholipid biosynthesis, were significantly elevated following treatment with Me2SO. Furthermore, the phospholipid content of the cells increased during exposure to Me2SO as shown by conspicuous incorporation of a lipophilic fluorescent dye (3,3'-dihexyloxacarbocyanine iodide) into the cell membranes. From these results we propose that Me2SO treatment induces membrane proliferation in yeast cells to alleviate the adverse affects of this chemical on membrane integrity.