Methionine analogs and cell division regulation in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Methionine analogs such as ethionine, selenomethionine, and trifluoromethionine all arrest growth and division of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. One analog, ethionine, caused cells of the yeast to arrest specifically within G1; reciprocal shift experiments showed that ethionine and alpha-factor arrested cells at the same step ("start"). The major effect of ethionine on synthesis of macromolecules was to reduce both the rate of appearance of 35S ribosomal precursor RNA and the rate of production of mature rRNA. Synthesis of protein was relatively unaffected by ethionine. Selenomethionine and trifluoromethionine caused cells to arrest randomly in the cell division cycle. Although treatment of cells with either selenomethionine or trifluoromethionine also reduced the rate of total RNA synthesis, each of these analogs had other effects that presumably prohibited completion of the cell cycle. We propose that the rate of rRNA production is an important regulatory event in the cell cycle.