Extracellular pH and high concentration of potassium regulate the primary necrosis in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Abstract Extracellular pH has a significant impact on the physiology of the yeast cell, but its role in cell death has not been thoroughly investigated. We studied the effect of extracellular pH on the development of primary necrosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast under two general conditions leading to cell death. The first is sugar induced cell death (SICD), and the second is death caused by several specific gene deletions, which have been recently identified in a systematic screen. It was shown that in both cases, primary necrosis is suppressed at neutral pH. SICD was also inhibited by the protonophore dinitrophenol (DNP) and 150 mM extracellular K+, with the latter condition also benefiting survival of cell dying due to gene mutations. Thus, we show that neutral pH can suppress different types of primary necrosis. We suggest that changes to the cellular membrane potential can play a central role in yeast cell death.