Cellular logistics and functional genomics of mitochondrial inheritance in yeast

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Mitochondria are essential organelles of eukaryotic cells. Their inheritance upon cell division depends on a complex machinery that ensures that both daughter cells reliably receive mitochondria. Budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an excellent model organism to study mitochondrial inheritance in asymmetrically dividing cells. Mitochondria are transported by myosin motor proteins into the growing bud. At the same time, retention mechanisms in the mother cell ensure that a portion of the mitochondrial network is retained. During the process of aging intact mitochondria are preferentially transported into the bud, whereas old and damaged mitochondria accumulate in the mother cell until it dies. Major aims of the proposed project are the identification of proteins that mediate transport and partitioning of mitochondria in yeast cells and the investigation of the processes that determine asymmetric inheritance of damaged mitochondria. Our previous results demonstrate that myosin motor proteins and mitochondria-plasma membrane anchors play important roles in mitochondrial partitioning, and that septins at the mother-bud neck presumably are important for asymmetric partitioning of damaged mitochondria. With the continuation of the project we would like to identify additional factors required for these processes, such as mitochondrial receptors for myosin motor proteins. Furthermore, we would like to investigate the processes that determine the asymmetric partitioning of young and aged mitochondria, such as septins at the mother-bud neck. We expect that the results obtained in this project will contribute to the understanding of asymmetric inheritance of mitochondria also in higher eukaryotic cells, such as cell division and differentiation of mammalian stem cells.