Live fast, die fast principle in a single cell of fission yeast

Growth and death are both fundamental macroscopic properties for all living matters, and thus cell division and mortality rates are good parameters for characterizing cellular physiology in a given environment. While population growth rates in various conditions have been reported in literature, death rate is rarely measured, especially in favorable culture conditions where cells grow exponentially. In our recent study (Nakaoka and Wakamoto, 2017), we developed a microfluidics-based platform to track multiple single cell lineages until death. The system enabled us to monitor both cell growth and death in controlled steady environments, and we confirmed the absence of replicative aging in fission yeast old-pole cell lineages by showing remarkable constancy both in cell division and mortality rates. Furthermore, we revealed a growth-death trade-off relation in non-stressed conditions. The phenomenological law that constrains macroscopic physiological parameters could provide a new quantitative insight into possible balanced-growth states in various environments.