Proliferation/quiescence: The controversial "aller-retour"

Abstract

The vast majority of cells, from prokaryotes up to vertebrate organisms, spend most of their time in quiescence, a state defined as a temporary and reversible absence of proliferation. Establishing the quiescent state while maintaining the capacity to re-enter the proliferation cycle are critical for cell survival and must be tightly orchestrated to avoid pathological proliferation. Hence, studying the biology of quiescent cells is an exciting research field. Taking advantage of technical progress in genomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic, the nature of transitions between proliferation and quiescence have been recently re-visited in budding yeast. Together with new findings in cell biology, these studies resuscitate an old demon in the field: the controversial existence of a "quiescence program". © 2011 Daignan-Fornier and Sagot; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.