Heat Stress-Induced Metabolic Remodeling in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Yeast cells respond to heat stress by remodeling their gene expression, resulting in the changes of the corresponding proteins and metabolites. Compared to the intensively investigated transcriptome and proteome, the metabolic response to heat stress is not sufficiently characterized. Mitochondria have been recognized to play an essential role in heat stress tolerance. Given the compartmentalization of the cell, it is not clear if the heat stress-induced metabolic response occurs in mitochondria or in the cytosol. Therefore, a compartment-specific metabolite analysis was performed to analyze the heat stress-induced metabolic response in mitochondria and the cytoplasm. In this work, the isolated mitochondria and the cytoplasm of yeast cells grown at permissive temperature and cells adapting to heat stress were subjected to mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Over a hundred metabolites could be identified, covering amino acid metabolism, energy metabolism, arginine metabolism, purine and pyrimidine metabolism, and others. Highly accumulated citrulline and reduced arginine suggested remodeled arginine metabolism. A stable isotope-labeled experiment was performed to analyze the heat stress-induced metabolic remodeling of the arginine metabolism, identifying activated de novo ornithine biosynthesis to support arginine and spermidine synthesis. The short-term increased spermidine and trehalose suggest their important roles as heat stress markers. These data provide metabolic clues of heat stress-induced metabolic remodeling, which helps in understanding the heat stress response.