Abstract
The machinery that inserts mitochondrially encoded proteins into the inner membrane and translocates their hydrophilic domains through the membrane is poorly understood. We have developed a genetic screen for Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants defective in this export process. The screen is based on the fact that the hydrophilic polypeptide Arg8mp is exported from the matrix if it is synthesized within mitochondria as a bifunctional Cox2p-Arg8mp fusion protein. Since export of Arg8mp causes an Arg− phenotype, defective mutants can be selected as Arg+. Here we show that mutations in the nuclear gene PNT1 block the translocation of mitochondrially encoded fusion proteins across the inner membrane. Pnt1p is a mitochondrial integral inner membrane protein that appears to have two hydrophilic domains in the matrix, flanking a central hydrophobic hairpin-like anchor. While an S. cerevisiae pnt1 deletion mutant was more sensitive to H2O2 than the wild type was, it was respiration competent and able to export wild-type Cox2p. However, deletion of the PNT1 orthologue from Kluyveromyces lactis,KlPNT1, caused a clear nonrespiratory phenotype, absence of cytochrome oxidase activity, and a defect in the assembly of KlCox2p that appears to be due to a block of C-tail export. Since PNT1 was previously described as a gene affecting resistance to the antibiotic pentamidine, our data support a mitochondrial target for this drug.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank T. L. Mason for anti-Cox2p and for help in performing cytochrome oxidase assays. We also thank B. S. Glick, C. Koehler, and G. Schatz for other antisera; N. Da Silva, H. Fukuhara, and M. Bianchi for K. lactis plasmids; and L. A. Grivell for the K. lactis library.
This work was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in the form of a National Research Service Award (GM18093) to S.H. and a grant (GM29362) to T.D.F.