Characterization of a dominant, constitutive mutation, PHOO, for the repressible acid phosphatase synthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

An apparent operator-constitutive mutation was discovered in the repressible acid phosphatase system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The site of mutation, designated PHOO, was found to be closely linked to the phoD locus. The mutant allele, PHOO, was semidominant over the wild-type allele and effective for the expression of the phoD gene in cis position. The phoD mutation gave rise to a defective phenotype for the formation of the repressible acid phosphatase. On the other hand, neither the repressible acid phosphatase activity in the cell-free extracts prepared from cells of the temperature-sensitive phoD mutant grown at 25 C, nor that of the revertants from the phoD mutants, could be distinguished from that of the wild-type strain with respect to thermolability and K(m) value for p-nitrophenylphosphate. These results strongly suggest that the phoD gene is not a structural gene, but a regulatory gene exerting positive control for the formation of repressible acid phosphatase. Close similarity between the apparent role of the phoO-PHOD gene cluster and that of the c-GAL4 gene cluster in the galactose system of S. cerevisiae could be inferred.