Pregnenolone esterification in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A potential detoxification mechanism

While studying the effect of steroids on the growth of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we found that pregnenolone was converted into the acetate ester. This reaction was identified as a transfer of the acetyl group from acetyl-CoA to the 3beta-hydroxyl group of pregnenolone. The corresponding enzyme, acetyl-CoA:pregnenolone acetyltransferase (APAT) is specific for Delta5- or Delta4-3beta-hydroxysteroids and short-chain acyl-CoAs. The apparent Km for pregnenolone is approximately 0.5 microm. The protein associated with APAT activity was partially purified and finally isolated from an SDS/polyacrylamide gel. Tryptic peptides were generated and N-terminally sequenced. Two peptide sequences allowed the identification of an open reading frame (YGR177c, in the S. cerevisiae genome database) translating into a 62-kDa protein of hitherto unknown function. This protein encoded by a gene known as ATF2 displays 37% identity with an alcohol acetyltransferase encoded by the yeast gene ATF1. Disruption of ATF2 led to the complete elimination of APAT activity and consequently abolished the esterification of pregnenolone. In addition, a toxic effect of pregnenolone linked to the disruption of ATF2 was observed. Pregnenolone toxicity is more pronounced when the atf2-Delta mutation is introduced in a yeast strain devoid of the ATP-binding cassette transporters, PDR5 and SNQ2. Our results suggest that Atf2p (APAT) plays an active role in the detoxification of 3beta-hydroxysteroids in association with the efflux pumps Pdr5p and Snq2p.