An essential gene, ESR1, is required for mitotic cell growth, DNA repair and meiotic recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

A new mutant, which was sensitive to both methyl-methanesulfonate (MMS) and ultra-violet light (UV) and defective in meiotic recombination, was isolated from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The gene, ESR1, was cloned by complementation of the MMS sensitivity of the mutant and found to be essential for cell growth, as the deleted haploid strain was lethal. The ESR1 gene was adjacent to the CKS1 gene on chromosome II and encoded a putative 2368-amino acid protein with a molecular weight of 273 k. The ESR1 transcript was 8.0 kb long and was induced during meiosis. The predicted Esr1 protein had a mosaic structure composed of homologous regions and showed amino acid sequence similarities to Schizosaccharomyces pombe rad3+ protein, which monitors completion of DNA repair synthesis, and cut1+ protein, which is required for spindle pole body (SPB) duplication. The Esr1 protein was also similar to phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinases, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae TOR2 (and DRR1), which are involved in G1 progression. These results suggest that ESR1 is multi-functional throughout mitosis and meiosis.