Examination of drug resistance activity of human TAP-like (ABCB9) expressed in yeast

A half-type ABC transporter, human TAP-like (hTAPL) tagged with histidine cluster, was expressed in budding yeast protease-deficient strain BJ5457, and the effect of expression for resistance to peptide compounds including antibiotics and proteinase inhibitor was examined. Among these compounds, the yeast expressing hTAPL exhibits high sensitivity to valinomycin, a monovalent cation ionophore. A mutation in Walker A motif, which lost ATP-binding activity of hTAPL, eliminated the enhanced sensitivity to valinomycin. These findings suggest that the transport activity of hTAPL is important for conferring high valinomycin-sensitive phenotype to yeast.