The vacuole of yeast shares many features with mammalian lysosomes. It is an acidic compartment, contains several major hydrolases, an d is the final destination for several compounds which enter the cell by receptor-mediated endocytosis and fluid-phase endocytosis. Because yeast is amendable to genetical, biochemical, and cell biological analysis, and because the vacuole is such a large and conspicuous organelle in a yeast cell, yeast is an excellent model system for studies on the function and assembly of this organelle. This lab has accumulated a large collection of mutants defective in vacuolar function and assembly. Advancements in molecular biology has allowed us to easily clone and sequence the genes identified by the defective mutants. In 1988/89 alone we have cloned and sequenced 4 genes (PEP3, PEP5, PEP7, PEP12) found to be involved in vacuolar function. With sequence in hand we have turned to computer analysis for which up till now we have relied on the services of the now defunct BIONET. Our specific computer needs are: 1) sequencing management 2) nucleic and amino acid similarity searches and comparisons and 3) primary and secondary structure analysis. Most of our needs can be met by the Wisconsin package (UWGCG) loaded on VAX. In the interest of time the CRAY would be used to compare our protein sequences to all six translated reading frames of EMBL or GENBANK databases using FASTDB. Our facilities for interacting with PSC are an IBM-PC with a 2400 baud modem which allows us to access the Telenet Public Data Network or to dial into the Carnegie Mellon University Annex Terminal Server and a Macintosh which is connected to the Carnegie Mellon Internet through an AppleTalk connector. We have no current financial or supercomputing support for our computing needs
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