Transcriptional and chromatin-based partitioning mechanisms uncouple protein scaling from cell size.

Biosynthesis scales with cell size such that protein concentrations generally remain constant as cells grow. As an exception, synthesis of the cell-cycle inhibitor Whi5 "sub-scales" with cell size so that its concentration is lower in larger cells to promote cell-cycle entry. Here, we find that transcriptional control uncouples Whi5 synthesis from cell size, and we identify histones as the major class of sub-scaling transcripts besides WHI5 by screening for similar genes.