MSW, a yeast gene coding for mitochondrial tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase.

E569 and E606 are noncomplementing pet mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both strains are defective in mitochondrial protein synthesis and as a result exhibit a pleiotropic deficiency in respiratory components that are translated on mitochondrial ribosomes. The wild type gene MSW capable of complementing the protein synthesis defect has been cloned by transformation of one of the mutants with a genomic library of wild type yeast nuclear DNA. The cloned gene has been sequenced and shown to code for a protein with a molecular weight of 42,414 which is 37 and 39% identical to the tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetases of Escherichia coli and Bacillus stearothermophilus, respectively. A strain containing an insertion in the chromosomal copy of MSW was constructed by in situ gene replacement. This mutant fails to charge mitochondrial tryptophanyl-tRNA providing further evidence that MSW is the structural gene for mitochondrial tryptophanyl tRNA synthetase. The existence of another gene coding for the cytoplasmic tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase is inferred from the observation that mutations in MSW are not lethal but only result in a respiratory deficiency.