Interactions of the RAD7 and RAD23 excision repair genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with DNA repair genes in different epistasis groups.

The RAD7 and RAD23 genes of S. cerevisiae affect the efficiency of excision repair of UV-damaged DNA. We have examined the UV survival of strains carrying the rad7 and rad23 deletion mutation in combination with deletion mutations in genes affecting different DNA repair pathways. As expected, the rad7 delta and rad23 delta mutations interact epistatically with the excision repair defective rad1 delta mutation, and synergistically with the rad6 delta and rad52 delta mutations that affect the postreplication repair and recombinational repair pathways, respectively. However, the rad7 delta rad6 delta and the rad23 delta rad6 delta mutants exhibit the same level of UV sensitivity as the rad1 delta rad6 delta mutant. This observation is of interest since, in contrast to the rad7 delta or the rad23 delta mutations, the rad1 delta mutant is very UV sensitive and highly excision defective. This observation suggest that RAD6 and RAD7 and RAD23 genes complete for the same substrate during DNA repair.