Oxidative Stress Upregulates the Transcription of Genes Involved in Thiamine Metabolism

Abstract

: Thiamine is a major vitamin that acts as a cofactor in energy metabolism in all organisms, as well as in lipid and aminoacid metabolisms, and is associated with many diseases. It is known that glucose starvation decreases the intracellular thiamine poolwhile increasing oxidative stress tolerance. Earlier, in whole genome analysis, we detected major differences in the expression of genesrelated to thiamine pathway against oxidative stress in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We investigated the effects of oxidative stress andglucose repression to thiamine pathway in S. pombe by comparing some genes encoding key enzymes of each related pathway at thetranscription level. In the present study, we found that the expression of genes related to thiamine biosynthesis and transport (thi2, thi3,and pho1) increased in wild type and ird11 cells grown in thiamine-rich media under oxidative stress induced by $H_2O_2$. Based on ourfindings, we suggested that there might be an important effect of oxidative stress on thiamine biosynthesis and transport.