Hamasaki-Katagiri N, Katagiri Y, Tabor C W, Tabor H
Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-0830, USA.
Gene. 1998 Apr 14;210(2):195-201. doi: 10.1016/s0378-1119(98)00027-4.
Spermine, ubiquitously present in most organisms, is the final product of the biosynthetic pathway for polyamines and is synthesized from spermidine. In order to investigate the physiological roles of spermine, we identified the SPE4 gene, which codes for spermine synthase, on the right arm of chromosome XII of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and prepared a deletion mutant in this gene. This mutant has neither spermine nor spermine synthase activity. Using the spe4 deletion mutant, we show that S. cerevisiae does not require spermine for growth, even though spermine is normally present in the wild-type organism. This is in striking contrast to the absolute requirement of S. cerevisiae for spermidine for growth, which we had previously reported using a mutant lacking the SPE3 gene (spermidine synthase) [Hamasaki-Katagiri, N., Tabor, C. W., Tabor, H., 1997. Spermidine biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Polyamine requirement of a null mutant of the SPE3 gene (spermidine synthase). Gene 187, 35-43].
精胺普遍存在于大多数生物体中，是多胺生物合成途径的最终产物，由亚精胺合成。为了研究精胺的生理作用，我们在酿酒酵母第十二号染色体右臂上鉴定了编码精胺合酶的SPE4基因，并制备了该基因的缺失突变体。该突变体既没有精胺也没有精胺合酶活性。使用spe4缺失突变体，我们发现酿酒酵母生长不需要精胺，尽管野生型生物体中通常存在精胺。这与我们之前使用缺乏SPE3基因（亚精胺合酶）的突变体报道的酿酒酵母生长绝对需要亚精胺形成了鲜明对比[滨崎片桐，N.，泰伯，C.W.，泰伯，H.，1997。酿酒酵母中亚精胺的生物合成：SPE3基因（亚精胺合酶）缺失突变体对多胺的需求。基因187，35 - 43]。
