Compromised cellular responses to DNA damage accelerate chronological aging by incurring cell wall fragility in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) can attack almost all cell components including genomic DNA to induce many types of DNA damage. In this study, we used Saccharomyces cerevisiae with various mutations in a biological network supposed to prevent deleterious effects of endogenous ROS to test the effect of such a network on yeast chronological aging. Our results showed that cells with defects in cellular antioxidation, DNA repair and DNA damage checkpoints displayed a mutation rate higher than that of wild-type strain. Moreover, the chronological life span of most mutants as determined by colony formation was found to be shorter than that of wild-type cells, especially for the mutants defective in DNA replication and DNA damage checkpoints, although the observed cell number was almost the same for wild-type and mutant strains. The mutants were finally found to be more sensitive to SDS and lysing enzyme treatment, and that the degree of sensitivity was correlated with their chronological life span.