title: Physiological role of D-amino acid-N-acetyltransferase of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: detoxification of D-amino acids.
abstract: Saccharomyces cerevisiae is sensitive to D-amino acids: those corresponding to almost all proteinous L-amino acids inhibit the growth of yeast even at low concentrations (e.g. 0.1 mM). We have determined that D-amino acid-N-acetyltransferase (DNT) of the yeast is involved in the detoxification of D-amino acids on the basis of the following findings. When the DNT gene was disrupted, the resulting mutant was far less tolerant to D-amino acids than the wild type. However, when the gene was overexpressed with a vector plasmid p426Gal1 in the wild type or the mutant S. cerevisiae as a host, the recombinant yeast, which was found to show more than 100 times higher DNT activity than the wild type, was much more tolerant to D-amino acids than the wild type. We further confirmed that, upon cultivation with D-phenylalanine, N-acetyl-D-phenylalanine was accumulated in the culture but not in the wild type and hpa3Delta cells overproducing DNT cells. Thus, D-amino acids are toxic to S. cerevisiae but are detoxified with DNT by N-acetylation preceding removal from yeast cells.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji, 611-0011, Kyoto-fu, Japan.
authors.forename: Geok-Yong
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Yow
authors.forename: Takuma
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uo
authors.forename: Tohru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.forename: Nobuyoshi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Esaki
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism*; D051046:Amino-Acid N-Acetyltransferase / Q000378:metabolism*; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D051046:Amino-Acid N-Acetyltransferase