To avoid a mating mishap, yeast focus and communicate.
During mating, yeast cells must perforate their rigid cell walls at the right place to allow cell-cell fusion. In this issue, Dudin et al. (2015; J. Cell Biol. http://dx.doi.org/jcb.201411124) image mating fission yeast cells with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution. The authors find that when mating cells come into contact, they form aster-like actin structures that direct cell wall remodeling precisely to the point of contact.
McClure AW, Lew DJ