PEROXISOMAL ISOCITRATE LYASE OF THE NORMAL-ALKANE ASSIMILATING YEAST CANDIDA-TROPICALIS - GENE ANALYSIS AND CHARACTERIZATION

A genomic DNA clone encoding isocitrate lyase, a key enzyme of the glyoxylate cycle and. a peroxisomal enzyme of the n-alkane-assimilating yeast Candida tropicalis has been isolated with a cDNA probe from the yeast AEMBL library. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the genomic DNA clone disclosed that the region coding isocitrate lyase had a length of 1, 650 base pairs, corresponding to 550 amino acids (61, 602 Da). RNA blot analysis demonstrated that only one kind of mRNA (2 kb) supposed to be transcribed from this gene was present in the cells. A comparison of the amino acid sequences was made with the isocitrate lyase of castor bean, one of the glyoxysomal enzymes, and the enzyme of E. colu The isocitrate lyases of C. tropicalis and castor bean had high homology, and the presence of some amino acid stretches conserved in all three enzymes suggests that these might be involved in the catalysis of the common reaction. There was an insertion common to the isocitrate lyases of C. tropicalis and castor bean, which is of interest concerning their evolution. In the C-terminal region, a characteristic sequence similar to that previously proposed as the import signal to peroxisomes was present. © 1990 COPYRIGHT, 1990 BY THE JOURNAL OF BIOCHEMISTRY.