RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A systematic cell size screen uncovers coupling of growth to division by the p38/HOG network in Candida albicans JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 094144 DO 10.1101/094144 A1 Adnane Sellam A1 Julien Chaillot A1 Jaideep Mallick A1 Faiza Tebbji A1 Julien Richard Albert A1 Michael A. Cook A1 Mike Tyers YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/14/094144.abstract AB Cell size is a complex trait that responds to developmental and environmental cues. Quantitative analysis of the size phenome in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans uncovered 195 genes that markedly altered cell size, few of which overlapped with known size genes in other yeast species. A potent size regulator specific to C. albicans was the conserved p38/HOG MAPK module that mediates the osmotic stress response. Basal HOG activity inhibited the SBF G1/S transcription factor complex in a stress-independent fashion to delay the G1/S transition. The HOG network also governed ribosome biogenesis through the master transcriptional regulator Sfp1. Hog1 bound to the promoters and cognate transcription factors for both the G1/S and ribosome biogenesis regulons and thereby directly linked cell growth and division. These results illuminate the evolutionary plasticity of size control and identify the HOG module as a nexus of cell cycle and growth regulation.