The ZDS1 and ZDS2 proteins require the Sir3p component of yeast silent chromatin to enhance the stability of short linear centromeric plasmids.

Yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) clones of Saccharomyces cerevisiae containing a centromere, origin of replication, two telomeres and a >50 kb insert of DNA are maintained as normal yeast chromosomes. However, short linear centromeric plasmids of 10-15 kb in size (short YACs) are missegregated at a much higher frequency than long YACs or 10-15 kb circular centromeric plasmids. A search for genes that stabilized short linear centromeric plasmids when present in multiple copies per cell uncovered ZDS1, which reduced the rate at which cells lost the short YAC, increased the fraction of cells that maintained the short YAC and decreased the number of short YACs per cell. Multiple copies of ZDS2, a homolog of ZDS1, had similar effects. Genes near yeast telomeres are transcriptionally silenced by the recruitment of proteins encoded by the SIR2, SIR3 and SIR4 genes (Sir2p, Sir3p and Sir4p). Multiple copies of ZDS1 and ZDS2 caused an increase in telomeric silencing. In addition, ZDS1 and ZDS2 both required the open reading frame encoding the N-terminal 174 amino acids of Sir3p to stabilize short YACs. Thus, the short YAC stability assay revealed a silencing-independent function for the Sir3p N-terminus. Two-hybrid analysis indicated that Zds1p and Zds2p interact with Sir2p, Sir3p, Sir4p or the yeast telomere binding protein Rap1p. Deletion of both ZDS1 and ZDS2 made short YACs, but not a 100 kb YAC, extremely unstable and also caused a 70 bp increase in the length of the telomeric TG1-3 repeats. These data indicate that short YACs can be stabilized by trans-acting factors and suggest that the proteins encoded by ZDS1 and ZDS2 alter short YAC stability by interacting with proteins that function at the telomere.