In actively proliferating budding yeast, proteasome 26S is the most abundant cellular form of the proteasome holoenzyme (
Bajorek et al., 2003). It consists of a 20S core particle (CP), containing α and β subunits arranged into a barrel-shaped complex that bears the proteolytic activity and a 19S regulatory particle (RP) made up of two subcomplexes: the base and the lid (
Hanna and Finley, 2007). However, the 26S holoenzyme is not the sole proteasome form and subcomplexes can be found associated with other regulatory partners (
Schmidt et al., 2005).
The proteasome 26S degrades polyubiquitylated substrates in an ATP-dependent fashion (
Hanna and Finley, 2007). It can also degrade specific nonubiquitylated target proteins (
Orlowski and Wilk, 2003). In budding yeast, the majority of long-lived proteins are not degraded by the proteasome, whereas short-lived protein degradation is strongly affected by proteasome inhibitors (
Lee and Goldberg, 1996). Many of the short-lived targets of the proteasome are proteins involved in cell cycle progression. Consequently, a functional proteasome is crucial for cell proliferation. Accordingly, in budding yeast, all but four proteasome subunits are encoded by essential genes. Besides, proteolysis is not the sole function of proteasome subcomplexes, and it has been established that the 19S RP plays an important role in transcription regulation (
Ferdous et al., 2001;
Collins and Tansey, 2006;
Sulahian et al., 2006).
In exponentially growing yeast cells, 80% of the 26S proteasome is localized inside the nucleus throughout the cell cycle (
Russell et al., 1999). In
Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the nuclear envelope protein Cut8 is required for the retention of the proteasome 26S inside the nucleus (
Tatebe and Yanagida, 2000;
Takeda and Yanagida, 2005). It is widely accepted that precursors of both the 20S and 19S particles are translocated independently into the nucleus via the karyopherin αβ pathway, where they are subsequently maturated and assembled into active 26S holoenzymes (
Lehmann et al., 2002;
Fehlker et al., 2003;
Heinemeyer et al., 2004;
Wendler et al., 2004;
Isono et al., 2007;
Li et al., 2007).
Surprisingly, little is known about the proteasome in nonproliferating cells. It has been shown that the proteasome proteolytic activity decreases upon cells' entry into stationary phase (
Bajorek et al., 2003). This effect, apparently, does not correlate with a decrease of proteasome subunit abundance (Fig. S1, available at
http://www.jcb.org/cgi/content/full/jcb.200711154/DC1;
Bajorek et al., 2003) but rather with a disassembly of 19S RP from the 26S holoenzyme. Upon exit from quiescence, cells rapidly reassemble 26S proteasomes (
Bajorek et al., 2003). Although the expression of a constitutively active mutant form of the 20S CP decreases long-term cell survival, the cellular role of the proteasome and the fate of disassembled subcomplexes in quiescent cells remain obscure.
In this paper, we show that upon Saccharomyces cerevisiae entry into quiescence, there is a massive cytoplasmic relocalization of proteasome subunits into new structures that we have named proteasome storage granules (PSGs). This phenomenon is rapidly and fully reversed upon cell reentry into the proliferation cycle. Importantly, nuclear relocalization upon exit from quiescence occurs even in the absence of de novo protein synthesis, implying that PSGs are storage structures. Both PSG formation and nuclear relocalization were observed in the evolutionary distant yeast S. pombe, demonstrating the strong conservation and the broad significance of this phenomenon.