Actin- and tubulin-dependent functions during Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating projection formation

Several conditional-lethal mutant alleles of the single-copy Saccharomyces cerevisiae beta-tubulin and actin genes were used to evaluate the roles of microtubules and actin filaments in the pheromone-induced extension of mating projections. Mutants defective in tubulin assembly form projections indistinguishable in appearance from those formed by wild-type cells. However, the tubulin mutants are unable to move their nuclei into the projections and to orient the spindle pole body associated with each nucleus toward the projection tip. Actin mutants are defective in spatial orientation of cell-surface growth required for formation of normal mating projections. Migration of nuclei into mating projections and Spa2p segregation to projection tips are also defective in actin mutants. Studies with abp1 null mutants showed that the function of the Abp1p actin-binding protein is either not required for projection formation or there are other proteins in yeast with similar functions. Our findings demonstrate that actin is required to restrict cell-surface growth to a defined region for pheromone-induced morphogenesis and suggest that nuclear position and orientation in mating projections depend on direct or indirect interaction of microtubules with actin filaments.