Homocysteine- and cysteine-mediated growth defect is not associated with induction of oxidative stress response genes in yeast.

ABSTRACT: Intracellular thiols like cysteine, homocysteine and glutathione play a critical role in the regulation of important cellular processes. Alteration of intracellular thiol concentration results in many diseased states; for instance, elevated levels of homocysteine are considered to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Yeast has proved to be an excellent model system for studying many human diseases since it carries homologues of nearly 40% of human disease genes and many fundamental pathways are highly conserved between the two organisms. In the present study, we demonstrate that cysteine and homocysteine, but not glutathione, inhibit yeast growth in a concentration-dependent manner. Using deletion strains (str2Delta and str4Delta) we show that cysteine and homocysteine

SUBMITTER: Kumar A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1449999 | biostudies-literature | 2006 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature