Expression and function of the trehalase genes NTH1 and YBR0106 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The biological function of the trehalose-degrading yeast enzyme neutral trehalase consists of the control of the concentration of trehalose, which is assumed to play a role in thermotolerance, in germination of spores, and in other life functions of yeast. Resequencing of the neutral trehalase gene NTH1 on chromosome IV resulted in the observation of two possible start codons (Kopp, M., Nwaka, S., and Holzer, H. (1994) Gene (Amst.) 150, 403-404). We show here that only the most upstream start codon which initiates translation of the longest possible ORF is used for expression of NTH1 in vivo. A gene with 77% identity with NTH1, YBR0106, which was discovered during sequencing of chromosome II (Wolfe, K. H., and Lohan, A. J. E. (1994) Yeast 10, S41-S46), is shown here to be expressed into mRNA. Experiments with a mutant disrupted in the YBR0106 ORF showed, in contrast to a NTH1 deletion mutant, no changes in trehalase activity and in trehalose concentration. However, similar to the NTH1 gene a requirement of the intact YBR0106 gene for thermotolerance is demonstrated in experiments with the respective mutants. This indicates that the products of the likely duplicated YBR0106 gene and the NTH1 gene serve a heat shock protein function. In case of the YBR0106 gene, this is the only phenotypic feature found at present.