I. Miyakawa et al., ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MITOCHONDRIAL NUCLEOIDS FROM THE YEAST PICHIA-JADINII, Plant and Cell Physiology, 37(6), 1996, pp. 816-824
Mitochondrial (mt) nucleoids were isolated with a high degree of purit
y from the yeast Pichia jadinii, in which the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA
) is linear. Field-inversion gel electrophoresis (FIGE) revealed that
significant amounts of mtDNA could be isolated intact, as linear molec
ules of 41 kbp, from the isolated mt-nucleoids. Fifteen different prot
eins were detected in the mt-nucleoid fraction and, eight of these pro
teins bound to DNA. The patterns of mt-nucleoid proteins and of the DN
A-binding proteins after gel electrophoresis in the presence of SDS we
re somewhat different from those of such proteins from Saccharomyces c
erevisiae, The corresponding proteins isolated from the mt-nucleoids o
f four other species of yeast in the genera Pichia and Williopsis also
differed from one another in terms of electrophoretic mobility in the
presence of SDS, In immunoblotting experiments, antibodies that had b
een raised against the 67-kDa protein of mt-nucleoids from S. cerevisi
ae and the YMN-1 monoclonal antibody that is specific for a 48-kDa pro
tein in the mt-nucleoids from S. cerevisiae did not recognize any prot
eins in the mt-nucleoids from Pichia jadinii and four other species of
yeast, The results suggest the considerable diversity of the proteins
in the mt-nucleoids of yeasts.