Translational control of the SPP2 gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

초록

There are four AUG codons in two short open reading frames within 54 bases upstream of the initiation codon of the SPP2 gene, which is involved in pre-mRNA splicing of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Fifteen different combinations of the four AUG codons were mutated to other codons. Then, SPP2-lacZ gene fusions retaining a various number of the AUGs were constructed, and the activities of β-galactosidase expressed from the fused genes were measured in yeast. The β-galactosidase activities from the mutated fusions were higher than that from the wild type fusion: the more mutated AUG codons, the higher the enzyme activities. This result strongly suggests that the AUG codons present on the 5' leader region of the SPP2 transcript are cis-acting regulatory elements for SPP2 gene expression on a translational level. © 1996 The Korean Society for Molecular Biology.