铜是生物体中必需的微量元素之一,作为多种氧化酶的辅助因子参与不同的生物反应,对于维持生命活动起到重要的作用。但在过量的情况下,无论是一价铜离子还是二价铜离子对于生物体都具有很强的细胞毒性,因此铜的代谢是受细胞严格调控的。以酿酒酵母(Saccharomyces cerevisiae)为模式生物对铜代谢的研究已取得了很大进展,对其它高等生物体内铜代谢及其重要生理功能提供了重要信息。本文对酿酒酵母中铜离子的吸收、转运以及在细胞内的代谢调控的新进展进行了归纳,并结合自己的研究综述了真菌铜代谢调节的共性与差异。
Copper is an essential trace element in all organisms and serves as a catalytic cofactor for many biological processes in cells. Yet excess cuprous and cupric forms can be high toxic to the cells. Thus cells must have developed diverse mechanisms to control the uptake and distribution of copper. Much are known about the copper metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a few other fungi. In this review, we focus on the recent research in copper uptake, transport and distribution in model organism baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as well as the new frontier in other fungi, e. g. the novel roles of copper in the pathogenesis of the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.