{"doi":"10.1101/2020.02.05.935874","title":"The <i>wtf4</i> meiotic driver utilizes controlled protein aggregation to generate selective cell death","abstract":"Abstract Meiotic drivers are parasitic loci that force their own transmission into greater than half of the offspring of a heterozygote. Many drivers have been identified, but their molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. The wtf4 gene is a meiotic driver in Schizosaccharomyces pombe that uses a poison-antidote mechanism. Here, we show that the Wtf4 proteins can function outside of gametogenesis and in a distantly related species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae . The Wtf4 poison protein forms dispersed, toxic aggregates. The similar Wtf4 antidote protein also forms aggregates but is sequestered within or near vacuoles and is mostly benign. The Wtf4 antidote can co-assemble with the Wtf4 poison and promote its trafficking to vacuoles. We show that neutralization of the Wtf4 poison requires both co-assembly with the Wtf4 antidote and aggregate sequestration, as mutations that disrupt either of these processes results in cell death. This work reveals that wtf parasites can exploit protein aggregate management pathways to selectively destroy gametes.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":126237,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.957,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":466392,"name":"Anthony C. Mok","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":456273,"name":"Jeffrey J. Lange","orcid":"0000-0003-4970-6269","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":16254,"name":"Kexi Yi","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":466393,"name":"Tejbir S. Kandola","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":466394,"name":"Andrew M. Hunn","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":466395,"name":"Scott McCroskey","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":466396,"name":"Julia L. Snyder","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":456270,"name":"María Angélica Bravo Núñez","orcid":"0000-0002-6554-8814","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":465177,"name":"Melainia McClain","orcid":"0000-0002-8947-9841","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":51352,"name":"Sean McKinney","orcid":"0000-0002-9740-6247","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":465178,"name":"Christopher J. Wood","orcid":"0000-0002-6182-7779","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":465179,"name":"Randal Halfmann","orcid":"0000-0002-6592-1471","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437646,"name":"Sarah E. Zanders","orcid":"0000-0003-1867-986X","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":289351,"name":"Nicole L. Nuckolls","orcid":"0000-0001-7088-7944","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":109,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:23.509897Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}