title: A novel zinc finger protein encoded by a couch potato homologue from Solanum tuberosum enables a sucrose transport-deficient yeast strain to grow on sucrose.
abstract: A yeast strain deficient in secreted invertase but expressing a cytoplasmic sucrose synthase has been used to select for potato genes that enable growth on sucrose as the sole carbon source by suppressing the sucrose uptake deficiency. Besides the already known sucrose transporter gene (StSUT1), ten different suppressor clones were identified and characterized. One of these cDNAs (PCP1) enabled efficient growth of the mutant yeast strain and mediated uptake of radiolabeled sucrose. The cDNA encodes a protein of 509 amino acids which is highly hydrophilic and thus does not seem to represent a transporter. Sequence comparisons show that the protein contains zinc finger motifs and shares weak homologies with the Drosophila couch potato gene, which serves as a transcriptional regulator, indicating that PCP1 activates a silent endogenous sucrose uptake system. The other suppressor clones encode either putative transcriptional regulators, protein kinases or enzymes involved in thiamine biosynthesis, ferredoxin reduction or glutamyl tRNA reduction and suppress the phenotype by unknown mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Genbiologische Forschung, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kühn
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Frommer
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D001692:Biological Transport; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000032:analysis; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D015966:Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal; D016153:Genes, Suppressor; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D011198:Solanum tuberosum / Q000235:genetics*; D013395:Sucrose / Q000378:metabolism*; D015003:Yeasts / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D016335:Zinc Fingers / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010940:Plant Proteins; C078019:cpo protein, Drosophila; C078729:sucrose transport protein, plant; D013395:Sucrose