Sulfate uptake in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: biochemical and genetic study

Abstract

Sulfate uptake is the first step of the sulfate assimilation pathway, which has been shown in our laboratory to be part of the methionine biosynthetic pathway. Kinetic study of sulfate uptake has shown a biphasic curve in a Lineweaver-Burk plot. The analysis of this plot indicates that two enzymes participate in sulfate uptake. One (permease I) has a high affinity for the substrate (K(m) = 0.005 mM); the other (permease II) shows a much lower affinity for sulfate (K(m) = 0.35 mM). Regulation of the synthesis of both permeases is under the control of exogenous methionine or S-adenosylmethionine. It was shown, moreover, that synthesis of sulfate permeases is coordinated with the synthesis of the other methionine biosynthetic enzymes thus far studied in our laboratory. An additional specific regulation of sulfate permeases by inhibition of their activity by endogenous sulfate and adenosyl phosphosulfate (an intermediate metabolite in sulfate assimilation) has been shown. A mutant unable to concentrate sulfate has been selected. This strain carried mutations in two independent genes. These two mutations, separated in two different strains, lead to modified kinetics of sulfate uptake. The study of these strains leads us to postulate that there is an interaction in situ between the products of these two genes.