35 research outputs found
The 'petite negative' yeast Kluyveromyces lactis has a single gene expressing pyruvate decarboxylase activity
We cloned and sequenced the pyruvate decarboxylase
(PDC; EC 4.1.1.1) structural gene KlPDCA in the
yeast Kluyveromyces lactis and found it to be allelic
to the previously isolated rag6 mutation. The putative
amino acid sequence of the KlPdcAp appeared to be
highly homologous to those of the yeast Pdc proteins
identified so far. The disruption of KIPDCA indicated
that it is the only PDC structural gene in K. lactis, as
evidenced by the lack of PDC activity and ethanol production
in the pdcAdelta strains and by the absence of
growth on glucose in the presence of respiratory inhibitors.
It was observed that expression of the KlPDCA
gene is induced by glucose at the transcriptional level.
Transcription of the gene was reduced in the ragl,
rag2, rag5 and rag8 mutants, which are defective for
the low-affinity glucose permease, phosphoglucose isomerase, hexokinase, and a positive regulator of RAG1
expression, respectively