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Specific effects of nalidixic acid on mitochondrial gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

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Summary

Nalidixic acid at low concentrations (≦25 μg or ≦100 μM) exerts a differential effect on the expression of mitochondrial genes in vivo. The inhibition in wild type (mit +) strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is in the order cytochrome oxidase subunit I≧var 1>oxidase subunits II and III>apocytochrome b. This selectivity is not shared by other inhibitors of procaryotic gyrase (oxolinic acid, coumermycin, novobiocin), by inhibitors of mitochondrial transcription and translation (ethidium bromide, erythromycin) or by an effective inhibitor of RNA synthesis in yeast (lomofugin).

The effect, which may indicate close coupling of mitochondrial translation and transcription, can be used to probe the origin of novel polypeptide products arising as a consequence of mit - mutants in segments of the cob-box region, a mosaic of loci involved in the specification of apocytochrome b: As controls we have used various fragment polypeptides, previously inferred to represent segments of apocytochrome b. These exhibit the same level of sensitivity to nalidixic acid as does the parent. The same resistance is also shown by a number of other novel polypeptides in various mutants that have been ascribed to processing defects in the same primary transcript of the cob-box region. Two classes of such polypeptides exhibit mobilities in the range of subunit I of cytochrome oxidase and make their appearance in mutants lacking this entity. Their lack of sensitivity to nalidixic acid, however, suggests that they are not related to this subunit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Program, Indiana University, 47405, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Henry R. Mahler & Jeanette Johnson

  2. the Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, 47405, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Henry R. Mahler & Jeanette Johnson

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  1. Henry R. Mahler
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  2. Jeanette Johnson
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Communicated by F. Kaudewitz

Recipient of Research Career Award K06 05060 from the Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health; Research supported by Grant GM 12228 from the same Institute; to whom proofs should be sent

Publication No. 3345

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Mahler, H.R., Johnson, J. Specific effects of nalidixic acid on mitochondrial gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Molec. Gen. Genet. 176, 25–31 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00334291

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00334291

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