It has been considered that the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, like many other microorganisms, synthesizes glutamate through the action of NADP ؉ -glutamate dehydrogenase (NADP ؉ -GDH), encoded by GDH1, or through the combined action of glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase (GOGAT), encoded by GLN1 and GLT1, respectively. A double mutant of S. cerevisiae lacking NADP ؉ -GDH and GOGAT activities was constructed. This strain was able to grow on ammonium as the sole nitrogen source and thus to synthesize glutamate through an alternative pathway. A computer search for similarities between the GDH1 nucleotide sequence and the complete yeast genome was carried out. In addition to identifying its cognate sequence at chromosome XIV, the search found that GDH1 showed high identity with a previously recognized open reading frame (GDH3) of chromosome I. Triple mutants impaired in GDH1, GLT1, and GDH3 were obtained. These were strict glutamate auxotrophs. Our results indicate that GDH3 plays a significant physiological role, providing glutamate when GDH1 and GLT1 are impaired. This is the first example of a microorganism possessing three pathways for glutamate biosynthesis.Two pathways for ammonium assimilation and glutamate biosynthesis have been found in a variety of organisms. The first one, described by Holzer and Schneider in 1957 (12), is mediated by NADP ϩ -glutamate dehydrogenase (NADP ϩ -GDH; EC 1.4.1.4), which catalyzes the reductive amination of 2-oxoglutarate to form glutamate. In an alternative pathway demonstrated by Tempest et al. (25), glutamate is aminated to form glutamine by glutamine synthetase (GS; EC 6.3.1.2), the amide group of which is then transferred reductively to 2-oxoglutarate by glutamate synthase (GOGAT; EC 1.4.1.13), resulting in the net conversion of ammonium and 2-oxoglutarate to glutamate. The GS-GOGAT pathway has been found in several microorganisms (2,13,16,23) and in higher plants (18).In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, both pathways for glutamate biosynthesis are present (7,19). Mutants altered in NADP ϩ -GDH have been isolated (6); these show a higher doubling time than that of the wild type when both strains are grown on minimal medium supplemented with ammonia as the sole nitrogen source. Mutants impaired in GOGAT activity were selected from NADP ϩ -GDH-less mutants as glutamate auxotrophs (7,19). Genetic analysis of one of these mutants showed that the lack of GOGAT activity was due to the presence of two mutations (gus1 and gus2), which suggested the existence of two GOGAT enzymes in S. cerevisiae (7). Cloning of the GOGAT structural gene (GLT1) and construction of null GOGAT mutants definitively established that this yeast possesses a single NADH-GOGAT enzyme (4) and that GOGATless mutants (7) which cannot be complemented with GLT1 (unpublished results) are probably impaired in GLT1 regulation. In this paper we report the characterization of strains impaired in either GDH1, GLT1, or both. Our results show that there is a third pathway for glutamate biosynthesis, mediated by an N...

In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, two NADP؉ -dependent glutamate dehydrogenases (NADP-GDHs) encoded by GDH1 and GDH3 catalyze the synthesis of glutamate from ammonium and ␣-ketoglutarate. The GDH2-encoded NAD ؉ -dependent glutamate dehydrogenase degrades glutamate producing ammonium and ␣-ketoglutarate. Until very recently, it was considered that only one biosynthetic NADP-GDH was present in S. cerevisiae. This fact hindered understanding the physiological role of each isoenzyme and the mechanisms involved in ␣-ketoglutarate channeling for glutamate biosynthesis. In this study, we purified and characterized the GDH1-and GDH3-encoded NADP-GDHs; they showed different allosteric properties and rates of ␣-ketoglutarate utilization. Analysis of the relative levels of these proteins revealed that the expression of GDH1 and GDH3 is differentially regulated and depends on the nature of the carbon source. Moreover, the physiological study of mutants lacking or overexpressing GDH1 or GDH3 suggested that these genes play nonredundant physiological roles. Our results indicate that the coordinated regulation of GDH1-, GDH3-, and GDH2-encoded enzymes results in glutamate biosynthesis and balanced utilization of ␣-ketoglutarate under fermentative and respiratory conditions. The possible relevance of the duplicated NADP-GDH pathway in the adaptation to facultative metabolism is discussed.

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SummaryIt is accepted that Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome arose from complete duplication of eight ancestral chromosomes; functionally normal ploidy was recovered because of the massive loss of 90% of duplicated genes. There is evidence that indicates that part of this selective conservation of gene pairs is compelling to yeast facultative metabolism. As an example, the duplicated NADP-glutamate dehydrogenase pathway has been maintained because of the differential expression of the paralogous GDH1 and GDH3 genes, and the biochemical specialization of the enzymes they encode. The present work has been aimed to the understanding of the regulatory mechanisms that modulate GDH3 transcriptional activation. Our results show that GDH3 expression is repressed in glucose-grown cultures, as opposed to what has been observed for GDH1 , and induced under respiratory conditions, or under stationary phase. Although GDH3 pertains to the nitrogen metabolic network, and its expression is Gln3p-regulated, complete derepression is ultimately determined by the carbon source through the action of the SAGA and SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complexes. GDH3 carbonmediated regulation is over-imposed to that exerted by the nitrogen source, highlighting the fact that operation of facultative metabolism requires strict control of enzymes, like Gdh3p, involved in biosynthetic pathways that use tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates.

Coagulation proteases are involved in a highly orchestrated proteolytic cascade which is essential for haemostasis and blood clotting. In particular, the initiator of the coagulation cascade, Factor VIIa, binds to its cofactor, tissue factor, and its substrate, Factor X, via exosite interactions to form a ternary catalytic complex named extrinsic Xase. These exosite interactions have also been shown to allosterically induce the active conformation of the catalytic site of Factor VIIa. We have developed a direct continuous fluorescence polarization-based extrinsic Xase assay, which has been used to screen in excess of 1 million structurally diverse low-molecular-mass compounds as a potential starting point for the development of anticoagulants. The primary screen hits were categorized with deconvolution assays into either active-site or exosite inhibitors. The latter category of hits displayed both competitive and uncompetitive modalities of inhibition with respect to Factor X activation. An uncompetitive mechanism of action is of particular interest as it offers a hypothetical inhibitory advantage in the context of inhibiting a proteolytic cascade such as the blood coagulation pathway.