NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase in obligate aerobic yeasts

The strictly aerobic yeasts Candida pinus, Cryptococcus albidus, Rhodotorula minuta, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa and Trichosporon beigelii possess mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenases with significant features of the NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase (complex I). These species show in all growth phases and under standard cultivation conditions, NADH dehydrogenases of approximately 700 kDa, which are sensitive to rotenone, a specific inhibitor of this complex. Identical results were obtained with the weakly fermenting C. pinus. The facultatively fermenting yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Kluyveromyces marxianus do not possess the 700 kDa-complex and are insensitive to rotenone. In S. cerevisiae, a rotenone-insensitive NADH dehydrogenase of about 500-600 kDa is detected only in stationary phase cells. As in Neurospora crassa, upon incubation of the obligately aerobic yeast R. mucilaginosa with chloramphenicol, an intermediate NADH dehydrogenase of approximately 350 kDa was formed, which was insensitive to rotenone.