Spatio-temporal coordination of transcription during the cell growth cycle in budding yeast

Metabolic self-synchronization in yeast cultures highlights significant gaps in our understanding of fundamental cellular processes. The oscillation percolates throughout cellular physiology, and the transcriptome oscillates between expression of genes encoding for biosynthesis and growth, and for catabolism and stress-response. However, long protein half-lives dampen this oscillation of transcript abundances, and putative functions remain elusive. We analyze an RNA-seq time series over 2.5 cycles of a short period respiratory oscillation (≈ 36 min, strain IFO 0233), preceding a distinct bifurcation of system dynamics. An integrative analysis of metabolic dynamics and co-expression cohorts identifies CO2 and carbonic anhydrase as putative players in oscillation and culture synchronization via a feedforward from catabolic to anabolic metabolism. Differential modulation of the relative duration of biosynthetic and catabolic protein cohort transcription precedes the bifurcation, compatible with a causative role in growth rate-dependent cellular resource allocation. The temporal program of protein-coding transcripts encodes the spatial structure of the cell. We suggest a function of periodic transcription in subcellular pattern formation of the growing cell.