Functional homology between the yeast regulatory proteins GAL4 and LAC9: LAC9-mediated transcriptional activation in Kluyveromyces lactis involves protein binding to a regulatory sequence homologous to the GAL4 protein-binding site

As shown previously, the beta-galactosidase gene of Kluyveromyces lactis is transcriptionally regulated via an upstream activation site (UASL) which contains a sequence homologous to the GAL4 protein-binding site in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (M. Ruzzi, K.D. Breunig, A.G. Ficca, and C.P. Hollenberg, Mol. Cell. Biol. 7:991-997, 1987). Here we demonstrate that the region of homology specifically binds a K. lactis regulatory protein. The binding activity was detectable in protein extracts from wild-type cells enriched for DNA-binding proteins by heparin affinity chromatography. These extracts could be used directly for DNase I and exonuclease III protection experiments. A lac9 deletion strain, which fails to induce the beta-galactosidase gene, did not contain the binding factor. The homology of LAC9 protein with GAL4 (J.M. Salmeron and S. A. Johnston, Nucleic Acids Res. 14:7767-7781, 1986) strongly suggests that LAC9 protein binds directly to UASL and plays a role similar to that of GAL4 in regulating transcription.