Slow growth induces heat-shock resistance in normal and respiratory-deficient yeast

Yeast cells respond to a variety of environmental stresses, including heat shock and growth limitation. There is considerable overlap in these responses both from the point of view of gene expression patterns and cross-protection for survival. We performed experiments in which cells growing at different steady-state growth rates in chemostats were subjected to a short heat pulse. Gene expression patterns allowed us to partition genes whose expression responds to heat shock into subsets of genes that also respond to slow growth rate and those that do not. We found also that the degree of induction and repression of genes that respond to stress is generally weaker in respiratory deficient mutants, suggesting a role for increased respiratory activity in the apparent stress response to slow growth. Consistent with our gene expression results in wild-type cells, we found that cells growing more slowly are cross-protected for heat shock, i.e., better able to survive a lethal heat challenge. Surprisingly, however, we found no difference in cross-protection between respiratory-deficient and wild-type cells, suggesting induction of heat resistance at low growth rates is independent of respiratory activity, even though many of the changes in gene expression are not.