Organelle scaling over a 100-fold cell size range

Abstract

Cell size in a proliferating cell population generally varies over a limited range ([~]2-4-fold). Within such populations, organelle content increases with cell size maintaining a relatively constant organelle density (amount per cell volume). However, cells of different types can differ greatly in cell size as well as in organelle composition. In such cases, it is often unclear to what degree, if any, the differences in organelle composition are due to the difference in cell size. In principle, this issue could be resolved by examining situations where a proliferating population of cells of the same cell type exhibit much greater size variation. Here we characterize how organelle content scales with cell volume in the polymorphic fungus, A. pullulans, whose proliferating cells span a [~]100-fold size range. We find that mitochondria and ER content increases in proportion to cell volume, while this is not the case for vacuoles and peroxisomes. Thus, organelle composition is affected by cell size in this system.