The effect of canavanine on the maintenance in yeast of chimeric plasmids containing portions of the 2-µm DNA plasmid.

We have found that the application of the amino acid analog canavanine to a culture of yeast cells transformed with chimeric plasmids based on the yeast 2-µm DNA plasmid increases the percentage of cells which have lost the transforming plasmid. This effect is found whether the plasmid carries the CAN1 sensitive allele and the yeast strain carries a can1 mutation confering resistance, or the plasmid contains no CAN1 allele and the yeast strain carries the wild-type CAN1 sensitive allele. Canavanine exerts this effect on yeast strains transformed with chimeric plasmids containing either a portion or the entire 2-µm DNA plasmid, yet canavanine does not appear to effect the maintenance of the native 2-µm DNA plasmid complement within the cell. The effect of canavanine on strains transformed with chimeric plasmids is the same whether or not the yeast strain also contains native 2-µm plasmid DNA. Neither the amino acid analog ethionine, the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide, nor the DNA replication inhibitor hydroxyurea exhibit this effect. Some of the experimental results suggest that canavanine may be a curing agent rather than an agent which selects for spontaneous plasmid loss.