A genomic view of yeast membrane transporters

Abstract

The yeast membrane transporters play crucial roles in functions as diverse as nutrient uptake, drug resistance, salt tolerance, control of cell volume, efflux of undesirable metabolites and sensing of extracellular nutrients. A significant fraction of the many transporters inventoried after sequencing of the yeast genome has been characterised by classical experimental approaches. Post-genomic analysis has allowed a more extensive characterisation of transporter categories less tractable by genetics, for instance of transporters of intracellular membranes or transporters encoded by multigene families and displaying overlapping substrate specificities. A complete view of the role of membrane transporters in the metabolism of yeast may not be far off.