Isolation of a new peroxisome-deficient CHO cell mutant defective in peroxisome targeting signal-1 receptor

For the study of mechanism of peroxisome biogenesis, we attempted to isolate CHO cell mutants deficient in peroxisome biogenesis. We used as the parent strain a stable CHO transformant of rat PEX2 (formerly named peroxisome assembly factor-1) cDNA, to avoid unusually frequent isolation of Pex2 mutants. Among the three peroxisome-deficient mutants obtained, ZP102 was a new CHO mutant of complementation group 2, and was restored for peroxisome assembly by the transfection of human PEX5 (formerly called PXR1 or PTS1R) cDNA. This approach would facilitate the isolation of new complementation gorups of peroxisome-deficient CHO mutants and the identification of essential genes for peroxisome biogenesis.