Genome-wide Expression Analysis of Sulfite Tolerance Genes in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Abstract

Sulfite is an important food preservative that is widely used in wine brewing, and the mechanism of sulfite metabolism in some strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been reported. However, there is still something unclear in the sulfite metabolism, because there are different mechanisms in the different strains. To study the sulfite metabolism in the transcriptional network and gene expression of S. cerevisiae strains, SSU1, and FZF1 genes were identified from genome sequences of yeast strains, and the transcriptional profile was mined from cDNA microarray. The fifth zinc finger of FZF1 protein was found to be another vital region for regulation, just as the first and fourth fingers previously reported. The functional difference of SSU1 protein in all surveyed strains might be related to the variation sites at 19, 52, 164, 291 and 344, and that of FZF1 protein might be related to the variation sites at 100, 107, 115, 120 and 258. The sulfur-tolerant capability of EC1118, UWOPS03-461-4, UWOPS05-217-3, UWOPS05-227-2, YPS128 and YPS606 strains was higher than the other strains surveyed, according to the CAI value of SSU1 and FZF1 genes. The evolutions of SSU1 and FZF1 genes were pushed by the mutation pressures. The expression levels of SSU1 and FZF1 genes might be enhanced by ROX1, ADR1, YPR015C, HAP4 and GIS1 genes. In addition, the function of YPR015C was validated, and the YPR015C gene was firstly found to play an important role in regulating sulfite metabolism.