Glucose-induced calcium influx in budding yeast involves a novel calcium transport system and can activate calcineurin

GIC transport is fully functional in conditions when calcineurin is active, a serine/threonine specificity phosphatase involved in the regulation of calcium homeostasis and in many other cellular phenomena such as tolerance to high concentrations of Na+ and Li+, response to pheromones and gene transcription regulation. Here it is reported for the first time that calcineurin can also be activated by nutrients: the activation of Crz1 transcription factor by calcineurin was observed in derepressed cells after addition of glucose in the presence of extracellular calcium.