Fatal attraction in glycolysis: how Saccharomyces cerevisiae manages sudden transitions to high glucose

February 20, 2014

This article comments on work published by van Heerden et al. (Science, 2014), which demonstrates that the startup of glycolysis exhibits two dynamic fates: a proper, functional, steady state or the imbalanced state described above. Both states are stable, attracting states, and the probability distribution of initial states determines the fate of a yeast cell exposed to glucose.