Abstract
Sugars like glucose and fructose induce death of yeast cells within a few hours, in the absence of additional nutrients to support growth, while cells incubated in water remain viable for weeks. This sugar-induced cell death (SICD) by glucose and fructose required glucose or fructose phosphorylation since yeast cells deficient in hexose phosphorylation did not die. However, when hexose phosphorylation is restored by complementation with Arabidopsis thaliana hexokinase, the cells died. The affinity of A. thaliana hexokinase is about 400 times higher for glucose than for fructose, therefore, A. thaliana hexokinase was further utilized to study the role of hexose phosphorylation in SICD. The rate of SICD of hexokinase-deficient yeast cells expressing A. thaliana hexokinase was significantly slower in fructose than in glucose, indicating that SICD is determined by the rate of hexose phosphorylation. The significance of hexose phosphorylation and its role in SICD is discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Granot, D., Dai, N. Sugar induced cell death in yeast is dependent on the rate of sugar phosphorylation as determined by Arabidopsis thaliana hexokinase. Cell Death Differ 4, 555–559 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4400280
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.cdd.4400280
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Alpha-ketoglutarate enhances freeze–thaw tolerance and prevents carbohydrate-induced cell death of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Archives of Microbiology (2018)
-
A novel process-based model of microbial growth: self-inhibition in Saccharomyces cerevisiae aerobic fed-batch cultures
Microbial Cell Factories (2015)
-
Sir-dependent downregulation of various aging processes
Molecular Genetics and Genomics (2005)