Pathways of UV Repair and Mutagenesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Starting in 1967 with work published by Nakai¹ a number of workers have isolated in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mutants which were more than usually sensitive to treatment with mutagens^{2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. Generally, the phenotype sought was sensitivity to ultra violet light of 254 nm wavelength, but many of the mutants were found also to be sensitive to other mutagens, such as ionising radiation^{1, 3, 4, 6, 7} or chemicals⁷. These mutants fell into a rather large number of different loci^{8, 9}, at least twenty-two conferring UV-sensitivity when mutant and a further eight loci primarily determining resistance to ionising radiation. Subsequently, mutants isolated with othey phenotypes such as resistance to UV-induced mutation¹⁰ or sensitivity to methyl-methane sulphonate (Snow, unpublished) were also found to be UV-sensitive. In some cases, these mutations had occurred at loci different from those previously identified.