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. 1985 Aug;5(8):2154–2158. doi: 10.1128/mcb.5.8.2154

Homothallic switching of Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating type genes by using a donor containing a large internal deletion.

B Weiffenbach, J E Haber
PMCID: PMC366935  PMID: 3915786

Abstract

Homothallic switching of the mating type genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae occurs by a gene conversion event, replacing sequences at the expressed MAT locus with a DNA segment copied from one of two unexpressed loci, HML or HMR. The transposed Ya or Y alpha sequences are flanked by homologous regions that are believed to be essential for switching. We examined the transposition of a mating type gene (hmr alpha 1-delta 6) which contains a 150-base-pair deletion spanning the site where the HO endonuclease generates a double-stranded break in MAT that initiates the gene conversion event. Despite the fact that the ends of the cut MAT region no longer share homology with the donor hmr alpha 1-delta 6, switching of MATa or MAT alpha to mat alpha 1-delta 6 was efficient. However, there was a marked increase in the number of aberrant events, especially the formation of haploid-inviable fusions between MAT and the hmr alpha 1-delta 6 donor locus.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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