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. 1986 Sep;6(9):3150–3155. doi: 10.1128/mcb.6.9.3150

Negative regulatory gene for general control of amino acid biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

P L Myers, R C Skvirsky, M L Greenberg, H Greer
PMCID: PMC367050  PMID: 3537730

Abstract

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, many amino acid biosynthetic pathways are coregulated by a complex general control system: starvation for a single amino acid results in the derepression of amino acid biosynthetic genes in multiple pathways. Derepression of these genes is mediated by positive (GCN) and negative (GCD) regulatory genes. In this paper we describe the isolation and characterization of a previously unreported negative regulatory gene, GCD3. A gcd3 mutation is recessive to wild type, confers resistance to multiple amino acid analogs, and results in overproduction and partially constitutive elevation of mRNA levels for amino acid biosynthetic genes. Furthermore, a gcd3 mutation can overcome the derepression-deficient phenotype of mutations in the positive regulatory GCN1, GCN2, and GCN3 genes. However, the gcd3 mutation cannot overcome the derepression-deficient phenotype of a gcn4 mutation, suggesting that GCD3 acts as a negative regulator of the important GCN4 gene. Northern blot analysis confirmed this conclusion, in that the steady-state levels of GCN4 mRNA are greatly increased in a gcd3 mutant. Thus, the negative regulatory gene GCD3 plays a central role in derepression of amino acid biosynthetic genes.

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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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