The Saccharomyces cerevisiae TCM62 gene encodes a chaperone necessary for the assembly of the mitochondrial succinate dehydrogenase (complex II)

The assembly of the mitochondrial respiratory chain is mediated by a large number of helper proteins. To better understand the biogenesis of the yeast succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), we searched for assembly-defective mutants. SDH is encoded by the SDH1, SDH2, SDH3, and SDH4 genes. The holoenzyme is composed of two domains. The membrane extrinsic domain, consisting of Sdh1p and Sdh2p, contains a covalent FAD cofactor and three iron-sulfur clusters. The membrane intrinsic domain, consisting of Sdh3p and Sdh4p, is proposed to bind two molecules of ubiquinone and one heme. We isolated one mutant that is respiration-deficient with a specific loss of SDH oxidase activity. SDH is not assembled in this mutant. The complementing gene, TCM62 (also known as SCYBR044C), does not encode an SDH subunit and is not essential for cell viability. It encodes a mitochondrial membrane protein of 64,211 Da. The Tcm62p sequence is 17.3% identical to yeast hsp60, a molecular chaperone. The Tcm62p amino terminus is in the mitochondrial matrix, whereas the carboxyl terminus is accessible from the intermembrane space. Tcm62p forms a complex containing at least three SDH subunits. We propose that Tcm62p functions as a chaperone in the assembly of yeast SDH.