The Role of Protein Degradation in Cell Size Regulation

Cells of a given type are remarkably uniform in size. In fact, deviation from this uniformity can imply the onset of a neoplastic condition. Previous work suggests that, at the level of the individual cell, size homeostasis is regulated by both growth rate and cell cycle (G1) duration. Altering either growth rate or cell cycle length will cause the other to compensate to minimize changes to cell size. However, the mechanism of this growth rate compensation is unclear. The aim of my project is to characterize the underlying pathways implicated in this mechanism, specifically to examine whether changes in protein degradation could be the responsible for this response. Indeed, I found that increased protein degradation, specifically, increased clearance of K48 ubiquitinated proteins, followed changed in growth rate due to compensation.M.Sc