Synthetic condensate size correlates with yeast replicative cell age

We recently developed a synthetic protein based system that forms condensates in vivo (Heidenreich et al. 2020). The system consists of two proteins that interact and condense into a round, mesh-like structure. The structures grow over time, since the components are constitutively expressed. This hints that condensate size could be used as a molecular timer. Here, we show that such a system indeed serves as a good proxy for yeast's replicative age.