Review: the Cct eukaryotic chaperonin subunits of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other yeasts

Abstract

All eight of the CCT1-CCT8 genes encoding the subunits of the Cct chaperonin complex in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been identified, including three that were uncovered by the systematic sequencing of the yeast genome. Although most of the properties of the eukaryotic Cct chaperonin have been elucidated with mammalian systems in vitro, studies with S. cerevisiae conditional mutants revealed that Cct is required for assembly of microtubules and actin in vivo. Cct subunits from the other yeasts, Candida albicans and Schizosaccharomyces pombe, also have been identified from partial and complete DNA sequencing of genes. Cct8p from C. albicans, the only other completely sequenced Cct protein from a fungal species other than S. cerevisiae, is 72% and 61% similar to the S. cerevisiae and mouse Cct8 proteins, respectively.