Sensitivity of yeast mutants to pterostilbene
In order to further investigate the relationship between the gene expression responses to pterostilbene and their phenotypic consequences in yeast mutants, we analyzed a number of yeast mutants with deletions in selected genes from each of the categories discussed above for their sensitivity to pterostilbene. The same genes selected for real-time RT-PCR analysis were also chosen for this study, and these included genes involved in lipid metabolism (UPC2, OAF1, RSB1 and INO4), sulfur metabolism (MET3), response to drug (AZR1 and PDR3), mitochondrial functions (RTG1 and RTG3) and cell wall-related functions (RLM1 and BAG7). As shown in Figure Figure4,4, the loss of Pdr3p (mutant pdr3Δ) resulted in increased sensitivity to pterostilbene, while the loss of Upc2p, Oaf1p, Bsr1p, Ino4, Met3p, Azr1p, Rlm1p or Bag7p resulted in neither increased nor decreased sensitivity to pterostilbene under the experimental conditions used. Surprisingly, the loss of Rtg1p or Rtg3p resulted in slightly increased resistance to the compound.