Studies on a proteinase B mutant of yeast

Yeast mutant lacking proteinase B activity have been isolated [Wolf, D. H. and Ehmann, C. (1978) FEBS Lett. 92, 121--124]. One of these mutants (HP232) is characterized in detail. Absence of the vacuolar localized enzyme is confirmed by checking for proteinase B activity in isolated mutant vacuoles. Defective proteinase B activity segregates 2:2 in meiotic tetrads. The mutation is shown to be recessive. Mutant proteinase B activity is not only absent against the synthetic substrate. Azocoll, but also against the physiological substrate pre-chitin synthetase, cytoplasmic malate dehydrogenase and fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase. The mutant shows normal vegetative growth, a phenomenon not consistent with the idea that proteinase B might be the activating principle of chitin synthetase zymogen in vivo. Fluorescence microscopy shows normal chitin insertion. Enzymes underlying carbon-catabolite inactivation in wild-type cells (a mechanism proposed to be possibly triggered by proteinase B) such as cytoplasmic malate dehydrogenase, fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase and isocitrate lyase, are inactivated also in the mutant. NADP-dependent glutamate dehydrogenase, which is found to be inactivated in glucose-starved wild-type cells, proceeds normally in the mutant. Mutant cells show more than 40% reduced protein degradation under starvation conditions. Sporulating diploids, homozygous for proteinase B absence, also exhibit an approximately 40% reduced protein degradation as compared to homozygous wild-type diploids or diploids heterozygous for the mutant gene. The time of the appearance of the first ascospores of diploid cells, homozygous for proteinase B deficiency, is delayed about 50% and sporulation frequency is reduced to about the same extent as compared to homozygous wild-type diploids or diploids heterozygous for the mutant gene.