Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)

Editor

Personal info

View

About

Terms

Javascript disabled

Please enable Javascript support in your browser to use this application.

Instructions on how to enable JavaScript on different browsers can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23852.

[edit this page]

Lisowsky, T. et al.

A new point mutation in the nuclear gene of yeast mitochondrial RNA polymerase, RPO41, identifies a functionally important amino-acid residue in a protein region conserved among mitochondrial core enzymes.

The core enzyme of mitochondrial RNA polymerase in yeast is homologous to those of bacteriophages T3, T7 and SP6. In previous studies the identification of the first conditional yeast mutant for this enzyme helped to identify the corresponding specificity factor and to elucidate their interaction inside mitochondria. In the present study we report the identification of a second nuclear mutation located in the gene for mitochondrial RNA polymerase. A comparison of the two temperature-sensitive mutants demonstrates that the new mutant has a phenotype distinct from the first one and characterizes a new important domain of the enzyme. Two different suppressor genes which both rescue the first mutant do not abolish the defect of the second one and, in addition, an extremely high instability of mitochondrial genomes is observed in the new mutant. The enzymatic defect is caused by a single nucleotide exchange which results in the replacement of the serine938 residue by phenylalanine. This amino acid is located in the middle part of the protein in an as yet poorly characterized region that is not highly conserved between mitochondrial core enzymes and bacteriophage-type RNA polymerases. However, the affected amino acid and the respective protein domain are specific for mitochondrial RNA polymerase core enzymes and may help to define enzymatic functions specific for the mitochondrial transcription apparatus.[1]

References

A new point mutation in the nuclear gene of yeast mitochondrial RNA polymerase, RPO41, identifies a functionally important amino-acid residue in a protein region conserved among mitochondrial core enzymes. Lisowsky, T., Stein, T., Michaelis, G., Guan, M.X., Chen, X.J., Clark-Walker, G.D. Curr. Genet. (1996) [Pubmed]

Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenes Open Access Licence Privacy Policy Terms of Use apsburg

The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.