Cloning of yeast TOP1, the gene encoding DNA topoisomerase I, and construction of mutants defective in both DNA topoisomerase I and DNA topoisomerase II.

Rabbit antibodies specific to yeast DNA topoisomerase I were used in immunological screening of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae genomic DNA library in Escherichia coli. One of the clones identified by its expression of antigenic determinants of the yeast enzyme is shown to contain the coding sequence of the enzyme: no active DNA topoisomerase I is detectable in cell extracts when insertion or deletion mutations are introduced into a 2-kilobase-pair (kb) region of the sequence in a haploid yeast genome. Blot hybridizations show that there is a single copy of the cloned sequence per haploid and that the sequence is transcribed to give a 2.7-kb poly(A)+ message. Mutants in which 1.7 kb of the sequence is deleted are viable. Temperature-shift experiments using synchronously grown cells of a delta top1 top2 temperature-sensitive (ts) double mutant and its isogenic top2 ts strain show that, whereas mitotic blocks can prevent killing of the top2 ts mutant at a nonpermissive temperature, the same treatments are ineffective in preventing cell death of the delta top1 top2 ts double mutant. These experiments suggest that in yeast DNA topoisomerase I serves a role auxiliary to DNA topoisomerase II.