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Evolution

Yeast cheats can prosper

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 4, page 847 (2003)Cite this article

Greig and Travisano investigated this possibility in yeast using the highly polymorphic SUC multigene family, the members of which all encode the enzyme invertase. Different yeast strains show unusually wide variation in the number of SUC genes that they carry and in whether or not they have a functional copy of SUC2 .

Invertase is secreted outside the yeast cell, where it digests sucrose. This creates the potential for what has been described as the 'prisoner's dilemma' — in this case, whether individuals should cooperate and secrete the enzyme into the shared pool or defect and simply steal the sugar digested by their neighbours. Theory predicts that neither strategy is stable and their relative success varies in endless periodic or chaotic cycles. If cooperation and defection are heritable behaviours, this social instability could potentially drive molecular evolution.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Greig, D. & Travisano, M. The Prisoner's Dilemma and polymorphism in yeast SUC genes. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B (Suppl.) 10 September 2003 (10.1098/rsbl.2003.0083)

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Authors
  1. Victoria Kitchener
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Kitchener, V. Yeast cheats can prosper. Nat Rev Genet 4, 847 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1209

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