Occurrence of acid-labile sulfide in cadmium-binding peptide 1 from fission yeast

Abstract

Two kinds of Cd-binding peptides (Cd-BP1 and Cd-BP2) are induced in fission yeast upon addition of CdCl2 to the culture medium (l). It was also reported that Cd-BP1 and Cd-BP2 consisted of the same components, unit peptides (Cys3, Glu3, Gly1) and Cd atoms, though the respective amounts of components in each molecule were different (1, 2). Now, we have found that Cd-BP1 contains about 1 mol of acid-labile sulfide per mol, and Cd-BP2 contains no labile sulfide. The existence of the labile sulfide explains the unique physicochemical characteristics of Cd-BP1. Since acid-labile sulfide has not been found in metallothioneins or other metallothionein-like metal-binding proteins, the occurrence of labile sulfide in Cd-BP1 is the first instance in this field.