CLONING AND SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS OF THE GENE ENCODING INVERTASE (INV1) FROM THE YEAST CANDIDA-UTILIS

The gene INV1 encoding invertase from the yeast Candida utilis has bee n cloned using a homologous PCR hybridization probe, amplified with tw o sets of degenerate primers designed considering sequence comparisons between yeast invertases. The cloned gene was sequenced and found to encode a polypeptide of 533 amino acids that contain a 26 amino-acid s ignal peptide and 12 potential N-glycosylation sites. The nucleotide s equences of the 5' and 3' non-coding regions were found to contain mot ifs probably involved in initiation, regulation and termination of gen e transcription. The amino-acid sequence shows significant identity wi th other yeast, bacterial and plant beta-fructofuranosidases. The INV1 gene from C. utilis was able to complement functionally the suc2 muta tion of S. cerevisiae. The sequence presented here has been deposited in the EMBL data library under Accession Number Y12659. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.