Isolation and characterization of MELt gene from Torulaspora delbrueckii IFO 1255

Torulaspora delbrueckii IFO 1255 is a melibiose-fermenting strain in Torulaspora species. From the genome of strain IFO 1255, we obtained a 770 bp fragment by PCR with oligonucleotides synthesized based on the MEL genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its related species. The region encompassing the 770 bp fragment was cloned by inverse PCR and sequenced. The nucleotide sequence revealed an open reading frame of 1422 bp encoding a 474 amino acid protein with a molecular weight of 52 360. The similarity of the presumed mature protein to Saccharomyces species and Zygosaccharomyces cidri alpha-galactosidases was 69.7-73.2% and 58.4%, respectively. The phylogenetic relationship between these species is discussed. The sequence is deposited in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank database under Accession No. AB027130.