Yeast regulatory gene PPR1. II: Chromosomal localization, meiotic map, suppressibility, dominance/recessivity and dosage effect

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene PPR1 encodes a positive regulator of the expression of the two unlinked structural genes URA1 and URA3 . The gene has been mapped to a position 6·5 cM from the centromere of chromosome XII. Uninducible alleles have been selected and used to establish a meiotic map. Suppressible alleles have been identified. The sequencing of a suppressible allele confirms the nonsense nature of the mutation as well as the reading frame deduced from the nucleotide sequence. No evidence of intracistronic complementation was found, and enzymatic analysis of leaky mutants did not reveal any mutations dissociating regulation of URA1 from that of URA3 . Three in vitro -constructed deletions of PPR1 have been integrated at the chromosomal locus, giving strains with a completely negative phenotype. These deletion mutants display the wild-type basal level of URA1 and URA3 expression and show a semi-dominant phenotype in heteroallelic ppr 1 + / ppr 1 -δ diploids. Amplifying PPR1 by introduction into yeast on a multicopy vector increases the induction factor of URA1 and URA3 expression. These results show that the extent of regulation of the two structural genes is dependent on the concentration of the active PPR1 protein.