Major sulfonate transporter Soa1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and considerable substrate diversity in its fungal family

Sulfate is a well-established sulfur source for fungi; however, in soils sulfonates and sulfate esters, especially choline sulfate, are often much more prominent. Here we show that Saccharomyces cerevisiae YIL166C(SOA1) encodes an inorganic sulfur (sulfate, sulfite and thiosulfate) transporter that also catalyses sulfonate and choline sulfate uptake. Phylogenetic analysis of fungal SOA1 orthologues and expression of 20 members in the sul1Δ sul2Δ soa1Δ strain, which is deficient in inorganic and organic sulfur compound uptake, reveals that these transporters have diverse substrate preferences for sulfur compounds. We further show that SOA2, a S. cerevisiae SOA1 paralogue found in S. uvarum, S. eubayanus and S. arboricola is likely to be an evolutionary remnant of the uncharacterized open reading frames YOL163W and YOL162W. Our work highlights the importance of sulfonates and choline sulfate as sulfur sources in the natural environment of S. cerevisiae and other fungi by identifying fungal transporters for these compounds.