D-amino acid-induced expression of D-amino acid oxidase in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

We investigated D-amino acid oxidase (DAO) induction in the popular model yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The product of the putative DAO gene of the yeast expressed in E. coli displayed oxidase activity to neutral and basic D-amino acids, but not to an L-amino acid or acidic D-amino acids, showing that the putative DAO gene encodes catalytically active DAO. DAO activity was weakly detected in yeast cells grown on a culture medium without D-amino acid, and was approximately doubled by adding D-alanine. The elimination of ammonium chloride from culture medium induced activity by up to eight-fold. L-Alanine also induced the activity, but only by about half of that induced by D-alanine. The induction by D-alanine reached a maximum level at 2 h cultivation; it remained roughly constant until cell growth reached a stationary phase. The best inducer was D-alanine, followed by D-proline and then D-serine. Not effective were N-carbamoyl-D,L-alanine (a better inducer of DAO than D-alanine in the yeast Trigonopsis variabilis), and both basic and acidic D-amino acids. These results showed that S. pombe DAO could be a suitable model for analyzing the regulation of DAO expression in eukaryotic organisms.