We have recently succeeded in transforming mitochondria in living yeast cells with exogenous DNA using the """"""""biolistic"""""""" (biological ballistic) technique, which is the bombardment of cells with microprojectiles coated with DNA. The proposed research is intended to refine the technique, to develop a set of convenient vectors and recipient strains for transformation of yeast mitochondria, and to exploit these developments to study selected problems in mitochondrial molecular biology and biochemistry. Vectors and recipient strains will be constructed to allow selection of transformants, the maintenance of intramitochondrial autonomous expression vectors, and to introduce modified mitochondrial DNA sequences into homologous sites in the mitochondrial genome. The function and sequence requirements of conserved mitochondrial transcriptional promotors and putative origins of replication will be examined. These data will not only contribute to the design of better mitochondrial transformation systems, but will advance our understanding of the expression and transmission of the mitochondrial genome and provide important in vivo correlates to in vitro data, which has been impossible up to now. A systematic analysis of the mitochondrial-encoded cytochrome b protein will be carried out to understand further, ligand binding and other functional domains of the protein by site-directed mutagenesis. Finally, we propose to transform two nuclear-encoded genes encoding complex III polypeptides into mitochondria and to determine the ability of their protein products to be functionally incorporated into complex III.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01GM041426-02
Application #
3299630
Study Section
Genetics Study Section (GEN)
Project Start
1989-04-01
Project End
1992-03-31
Budget Start
1990-04-01
Budget End
1991-03-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
1990
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Texas Sw Medical Center Dallas
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
City
Dallas
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
75390
Smith, F D; Harpending, P R; Sanford, J C (1992) Biolistic transformation of prokaryotes: factors that affect biolistic transformation of very small cells. J Gen Microbiol 138:239-48
Anziano, P Q; Butow, R A (1991) Splicing-defective mutants of the yeast mitochondrial COXI gene can be corrected by transformation with a hybrid maturase gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 88:5592-6
Shark, K B; Smith, F D; Harpending, P R et al. (1991) Biolistic transformation of a procaryote, Bacillus megaterium. Appl Environ Microbiol 57:480-5
Butow, R A; Fox, T D (1990) Organelle transformation: shoot first, ask questions later. Trends Biochem Sci 15:465-8