Genetic localization of diuron- and mucidin-resistant mutants relative to a group of loci of the mitochondrial DNA controlling coenzyme QH2-cytochrome c reductase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Diuron-resistance, DIU (Colson et al., 1977), antimycin-resistance, ANA (Michaelis, 1976; Burger et al., 1976), funiculosin-resistance, FUN (Pratje and Michaelis, 1977; Burger et al., 1977) and mucidin-resistance, MUC (Subik et al., 1977) are each coded by a pair of genetic loci on the mit DNA of S. cerevisiae. In the present paper, these respiratiory-competent, drug-resistant loci are localized relative to respiratory-deficient BOX mutants deficient in coenzyme QH2-cytochrome c reductase (Kotylak and Slonimski, 1976, 1977) using deletion and recombination mapping. Three drug-resistant loci possessing distinct mutated allelic forms are distinguished. DIU1 is allelic or closely linked to ANA2, FUN1 and BOX1; DIU2 is allelic or closely linked to ANA1, MUC1 and BOX4/5; MUC2 is allelic to BOX6. The high recombinant frequencies observed between the three loci (13% on the average for 33 various combinations analyzed) suggest the existence of either three genes coding for three distinct polypeptides or of a single gene coding for a single polypeptide but subdivided into three easily separable segments. The resistance of the respiratory-chain observed in vitro in the drug-resistant mutants and the allelism relationships between respiratory-competent, drug-resistant loci and coQH2-cyt c reductase deficient, BOX, loci strongly suggest that each of the three drug-resistant loci codes for a structural gene-product which is essential for the normal coQH2-cyt c reductase activity and is obviously a good candidate for a gene product of the drug-resistant loci mapped in this paper. Polypeptide length modifications of cytochrome b were observed in mutants deficient in the coQH2-cyt c red and localized at the BOX1, BOX4 and BOX6 genetic loci (Claisse et al., 1977, 1978) which are precisely the loci allelic to drug resistant mutants as shown in the present work. Taken together these two sets of data provide a strong evidence in favor of the idea that there exist three non contiguous segments of the mitochondrial DNA sequence which code for a single polypeptide sequence of cytochrome b. In each segment mutations which modify the polypeptide sequence can occur leading to the loss (BOX mutants) or to a modification (drug resistant mutants) of the enzyme activity.