ArticleNature communications2015
Origins of multicellular evolvability in snowflake yeast.
Article in Nature communications, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 92 papers.
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Who cites it
92 citing papers in PubMed, 226 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sedimentation accelerates mixed-substrate conversion during sequential batch cultivation of a co-culture of sugar-specialist yeast strains.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Constraints on the G1/S transition pathway may favor selection of multicellularity as a passenger phenotype.eLife · 2026Article
- Cell division timing shapes the morphology and size of nascent multicellular organisms.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Directed evolution for cell separation in natural isolates of budding yeast reveals selection to deactivate AMN1 and the Rim101 pathway in haploids and selection in favor of Hawthorne's deletion in diploids.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- The limits of information in precise regulation of early multicellular life cycles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Experimental Evolution of Yeast Reveals Trade-offs Between Early and Late Stationary Phase.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Using Experimental Evolution to Correct Mother-Daughter Separation Defects in Brewing Yeast.microPublication biology · 2026Article
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- Stochastic phenotypic switching arises in response to directional selection in experimentally evolved multicellular yeast.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Real-time, high-throughput super-resolution microscopy via panoramic integration.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Evolvability in vertebrate segmentation.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2025Review
- The Morphological, Behavioral, and Transcriptomic Life Cycle of Anthrobots.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Evolution of irreversible differentiation under stage-dependent cell differentiation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Review
- Adaptive evolutionary trajectories in complexity: Transitions between unicellularity and facultative differentiated multicellularity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Oxygen-binding proteins aid oxygen diffusion to enhance fitness of a yeast model of multicellularity.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Flagellar point mutation causes social aggregation in laboratory-adaptedJournal of bacteriology · 2024Article
32 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Complex life has arisen through a series of 'major transitions' in which collectives of formerly autonomous individuals evolve into a single, integrated organism. A key step in this process is the origin of higher-level evolvability, but little is known about how higher-level entities originate and gain the capacity to evolve as an individual. Here we report a single mutation that not only creates a new level of biological organization, but also potentiates higher-level evolvability. Disrupting the transcription factor ACE2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae prevents mother-daughter cell separation, generating multicellular 'snowflake' yeast. Snowflake yeast develop through deterministic rules that produce geometrically defined clusters that preclude genetic conflict and display a high broad-sense heritability for multicellular traits; as a result they are preadapted to multicellular adaptation. This work demonstrates that simple microevolutionary changes can have profound macroevolutionary consequences, and suggests that the formation of clonally developing clusters may often be the first step to multicellularity.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.