Protease helps yeast find mating partners

The choice of mating partner by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae involves the detection of mating pheromones produced by other yeast cells. A cell that is capable of mating deduces the position of its nearest mating partner from the spatial gradient of pheromone. While studying this process, we realized that, in the presence of many potential mating partners, the gradient might not point in the direction of the nearest partner. Here we show that degradation of some of the mating pheromone by protease enzymes helps to align the gradient in the direction of the nearest partner, which increases mating efficiency.