The role of proteasome in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae response to sub-lethal high pressure treatment

Hydrostatic pressure is a physical factor that can induce stress in organisms. This stress leads to growth inhibition, cellular arrest, and cellular death, and these effects depend on the degree of pressure, temperature, and sensitivity of the organisms to hydrostatic pressure. Genomics studies of yeast cells under conditions recovering from high pressure-induced cellular damage showed evidence that multiprotein complexes or membrane proteins, and not soluble proteins, are the critical targets. We performed a metabolomic analysis. The metabolomics results suggested that membrane-spanning proteins broke down after high pressure treatment and recovery conditions. We also found 13 genes that were common to essential and pressure-induced gene groups. Among these 13 genes, more than 10 were associated with proteasome structure and functions. This suggests that proteasome structure or functions can be the critical target or a highly important factor. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that yeast cells are sensitive to the proteasome inhibitor MG132 after high pressure treatment.