A regulatory system controlling the production of cytochrome aa3 in Neurospora crassa

The mitochondria of the cyt-2-1, cya-3-16, cya-4-23 and 299-1 nuclear mutants and the [mi-3] and [exn-5] cytoplasmic mutants of Neurospora crassa are deficient in cytochrome aa3, while the cyb-1-1 and cyb-2-1 mutants have mitochondrial b-cytochrome deficiencies. However, the mitochondria from cyb-1-1 cyt-2-1, cyb-1-1 [mi-3] and cyb-2-1 [mi-3] double mutants contain 30% to 50% of the amount of cytochrome aa3 that is present in mitochondria from wild-type; i.e. cyb-1-1 and cyb-2-2 act as suppressors of the cytochrome aa3 deficiency phenotypes that are associated with cyt-2-1 and [mi-3] mutations. The production of cytochrome aa3 can be induced in cyt-2-1 and [mi-3] by growing cells in medium containing antimycin A, an inhibitor of electron transport in the cytochrome bc1 segment of the mitochondrial electrontransport chain. Moreover, the growth of the [mi-3] mutant is strongly stimulated by low concentrations of antimycin A. The induction of cytochrome aa3 by antimycin treatments does not occur in [exn-5], cya-4-23 and 299-1 cells; but does take place in cya-3-16 cells. Although some of the seven constituent polypeptides of cytochrome aa3 are present in mitochondria of [mi-3], the holoenzyme complex is not formed in the mutant. In contrast, the mitochondria of cyb-1-1 [mi-3] and cyb-2-2 [mi-3] double mutants contain a fully assembled cytochrome oxidase complex as well as some unassembled subunit polypeptides. The observations are indicative of the existence of at least two regulatory systems controlling the production of cytochrome aa3. One of the circuits appears to control the basal or "constitutive" production of cytochrome oxidase, the other seems to coordinate the level of cytochrome aa3 with some function of the mitochondrial cytochrome bc1 complex, possibly electron transport.