Restoring Equilibrium: Vacuole-Cell Size Scaling and Metabolic Adaptation During Post-Stress Recovery in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Nathalie Vinluan Aquino
Department of Biology
Faculty Supervisor: Mark Chan
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast) is a key model for studying conserved eukaryotic stress responses, including metabolic adaptation and autophagy. While carbon starvation triggers well-documented survival mechanisms, the recovery phase–particularly how vacuolar morphology and function are restored–remains less understood. Yeast vacuoles, which share functional homology with mammalian lysosomes, undergo dynamic structural changes during stress, but their role in post-stress metabolic reprogramming is unclear. In this study, we use live-cell imaging and fluorescence microscopy to analyze the relationship in vacuole-cell size scaling, vacuolar morphology, and autophagic activity in S. cerevisiae during recovery from carbon starvation. Given the conserved role of lysosomal dysfunction in diseases like cancer, where metabolic stress responses are critical for cell survival, these findings could provide a framework for future studies on organelle plasticity in disease models.