GAL regulon of Saccharomyces cerevisiae performs optimally to maximize growth on galactose

The GAL regulon in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a well-characterized genetic network that is utilized for the metabolism of galactose as an energy source. The network contains a transcriptional activator, Gal4p, which binds to its cognate-binding site to express GAL genes. Further, Gal80p and Gal3p are the repressor and galactose sensor, respectively, which are also under the regulation of GAL regulon. It is shown that the wild-type strain produces only about 80% of the maximum expression feasible from the regulon, which is observed in a mutant strain lacking Gal80p. This raises a fundamental question regarding the optimality of expression from the GAL regulon in S. cerevisiae. To address this issue, we evaluated the burden on growth due to the synthesis of GAL proteins in S. cerevisiae. The analysis demonstrated that both the media type and the extent of enzyme synthesized play a role in determining the burden on growth. We show that the burden can be quantified by relating to a parameter, β, the ratio of enzyme activity to the initial substrate concentration. The analysis demonstrated that the GAL regulon of the wild-type strain performed effectively to optimize growth on galactose.