Characterization of 2-mum DNA of Saccharomyces cerevisiae by restriction fragment analysis and integration in an Escherichia coli plasmid.

Electrophoretic analysis of EcoRI and HindIII restriction fragments of 2-mum supercoiled DNA of Saccharomyces cerevisiae indicated that this class of DNA is heterogeneous and probably consists of two types of molecules. Integration of the 2-mum yeast DNA in E. coli plasmid pCR1 directly showed that existence of two types of molecules as each of these could be individually inserted into separate bacterial plasmids. The difference between the two types of 2-mum circles is due to an inversion of about 1.6 X 10(6) daltons. The inversion is flanked by a reversed duplicated sequence of 0.45 X 10(6) daltons. Possible implications of this structure are dicussed.