Sulphur amino acid synthesis in Schizosaccharomyces pombe represents a specific variant of sulphur metabolism in fungi.

Schizosaccharomyces pombe, in contrast to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Aspergillus nidulans, lacks cystathionine beta-synthase and cystathionine gamma-lyase, two enzymes in the pathway from methionine to cysteine. As a consequence, methionine cannot serve as an efficient sulphur source for the fungus and does not bring about repression of sulphur assimilation, which is under control of the cysteine-mediated sulphur metabolite repression system. This system operates at the transcriptional level, as was shown for the homocysteine synthase encoding gene. Our results corroborate the growing evidence that cysteine is the major low-molecular-weight effector in the regulation of sulphur metabolism in bacteria, fungi and plants. Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.