Carbon source-dependent phosphorylation of hexokinase PII and its role in the glucose-signaling response in yeast

The HXK2 gene is required for a variety of regulatory effects leading to an adaptation for fermentative metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, the molecular basis of the specific role of Hxk2p in these effects is still unclear. One important feature in order to understand the physiological function of hexokinase PII is that it is a phosphoprotein, since protein phosphorylation is essential in most metabolic signal transductions in eukaryotic cells. Here we show that Hxk2p exists in vivo in a dimeric-monomeric equilibrium which is affected by phosphorylation. Only the monomeric form appears phosphorylated, whereas the dimer does not. The reversible phosphorylation of Hxk2p is carbon source dependent, being more extensive on poor carbon sources such as galactose, raffinose, and ethanol. In vivo dephosphorylation of Hxk2p is promoted after addition of glucose. This effect is absent in glucose repression mutants cat80/grr1, hex2/reg1, and cid1/glc7. Treatment of a glucose crude extract from cid1-226 (glc7-T152K) mutant cells with lambda-phosphatase drastically reduces the presence of phosphoprotein, suggesting that CID1/GLC7 phosphatase together with its regulatory HEX2/REG1 subunit are involved in the dephosphorylation of the Hxk2p monomer. An HXK2 mutation encoding a serine-to-alanine change at position 15 [HXK2 (S15A)] was to clarify the in vivo function of the phosphorylation of hexokinase PII. In this mutant, where the Hxk2 protein is unable to undergo phosphorylation, the cells could not provide glucose repression of invertase. Glucose induction of HXT gene expression is also affected in cells expressing the mutated enzyme. Although we cannot rule out a defect in the metabolic state of the cell as the origin of these phenomena, our results suggest that the phosphorylation of hexokinase is essential in vivo for glucose signal transduction.