Chromosome-condensed G1 phase yeast cells are tolerant to desiccation stress

The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is capable of surviving extreme water loss for a long time. However, less is known about the mechanism of its desiccation tolerance. In this study, we revealed that in an exponential culture, all desiccation tolerant yeast cells were in G1 phase and had condensed chromosomes. These cells share certain features of stationary G0 cells, such as low metabolic level. They were also replicatively young, compared to the desiccation sensitive G1 cells. A similar percentage of chromosome-condensed cells were observed in stationary phase but the condensation level was much higher than that of the log-phase cells. These chromosome-condensed stationary cells were also tolerant to desiccation. However, the majority of the desiccation tolerant cells in stationary phase do not have condensed chromosomes. We speculate that the log-phase cells with condensed chromosome might be a unique feature developed through evolution to survive unpredicted sudden changes of the environment.