Physiological functions of vacuoles in yeast: Mechanism of sequestration of metabolites and proteins into vacuoles

Abstract

Vacuoles are the largest compartment in yeast cells, occupying about 25\% of the total cell volumes. Vacuoles contain mainly low molecular weight solutes and ions, but quite small amount of proteins. Recent studies revealed that vacuoles are not inert organelles as previously thought, but play important roles on maintaining homeostasis of cytosol in many respects. Last 15 years we have been making efforts to understand the structure and function of vacuoles in yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, by taking several different approaches, as described below.