Building up and breaking down: co-ordination of cell wall production and proteasome assembly

Cell wall maintenance and proteome remodelling are fundamental requirements for fungal cells subjected to stress. Previous work has shown that the cell wall integrity pathway is activated upon diverse stresses to both increase the production of cell wall constituents and proteasome assembly factors through activation of Mpk1 kinase. In a recent study, Šupljika and colleagues identified a further link between the two processes. The E3 ligase adaptor Mub1 is a negative regulator of both proteasome subunit production and cell wall maintenance factors. These multifactoral links may have emerged from interspecies competition, providing a benefit to linking these diverse stress adaptation mechanisms.