Saccharomyces cerevisae mitochondria can synthesise FMN and FAD from externally added riboflavin and export them to the extramitochondrial phase

Evidence is given that mitochondria isolated from Saccharomyces cerevisiae can take up externally added riboflavin and synthesise from it both flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) probably due to the existence of the mitochondrial riboflavin kinase already reported and the novel mitochondria FAD synthetase. Moreover Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondria can export the newly synthesised flavin derivatives to the extramitochondrial phase. This has been proven to take place with 1:1 stoichiometry with riboflavin decrease outside mitochondria, thus showing that flavin traffic occurs across the mitochondrial membranes.