No abstract

Saccharomyces cerevisiae carries ∼150 copies of rDNA in tandem repeats. It was found that the absence of an essential subunit of RNA polymerase I (Pol I) in rpa135 deletion mutants triggers a gradual decrease in rDNA repeat number to about one-half the normal level. Reintroduction of the missing RPA135 gene induced a gradual increase in repeat number back to the normal level. Gene FOB1 was shown to be essential for both the decrease and increase of rDNA repeats. FOB1 was shown previously to be required for replication fork blocking (RFB) activity at RFB site in rDNA and for recombination hot-spot (HOT1) activity. Thus, DNA replication fork blockage appears to stimulate recombination and play an essential role in rDNA expansion/contraction and sequence homogenization, and possibly, in the instability of repeated sequences in general. RNA Pol I, on the other hand, appears to control repeat numbers, perhaps by stabilizing rDNA with the normal repeat numbers as a stable nucleolar structure.

Genes encoding rRNA are multicopy and thus could be regulated by changing the number of active genes or by changing the transcription rate per gene. We tested the hypothesis that the number of open genes is limiting rRNA synthesis by using an electron microscopy method that allows direct counting of the number of active genes per nucleolus and the number of polymerases per active gene. Two strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were analyzed during exponential growth: a control strain with a typical number of rRNA genes (ϳ143 in this case) and a strain in which the rRNA gene number was reduced to ϳ42 but which grows as well as controls. In control strains, somewhat more than half of the genes were active and the mean number of polymerases/gene was ϳ50 ؎ 20. In the 42-copy strain, all rRNA genes were active with a mean number of 100 ؎ 29 polymerases/ gene. Thus, an equivalent number of polymerases was active per nucleolus in the two strains, though the number of active genes varied by twofold, showing that overall initiation rate, and not the number of active genes, determines rRNA transcription rate during exponential growth in yeast. Results also allow an estimate of elongation rate of ϳ60 nucleotides/s for yeast Pol I and a reinitiation rate of less than 1 s on the most heavily transcribed genes.

No abstract

It is known that mutations in gene SIR2 increase and those in FOB1 decrease recombination within rDNA repeats as assayed by marker loss or extrachromosomal rDNA circle formation. SIR2-dependent chromatin structures have been thought to inhibit access and/or function of recombination machinery in rDNA. We measured the frequency of FOB1-dependent arrest of replication forks, consequent DNA double-strand breaks, and formation of DNA molecules with Holliday junction structures, and found no significant difference between sir2Delta and SIR2 strains. Formal genetic experiments measuring mitotic recombination rates within individual rRNA genes also showed no significant difference between these two strains. Instead, we found a significant decrease in the association of cohesin subunit Mcd1p (Scc1p) to rDNA in sir2Delta relative to SIR2 strains. From these and other experiments, we conclude that SIR2 prevents unequal sister-chromatid recombination, probably by forming special cohesin structures, without significant effects on recombinational events within individual rRNA genes.