Primary gene amplification, i.e., mutation from one gene copy to multiple gene copies per genome, is important in genomic evolution, as a means of producing anti-cancer drug resistance, and is associated with the progression of tumor malignancy. Primary amplification has not been studied in normal eukaryotic cells because amplifications are extremely rare in these cells. A system has been developed to phenotypically identify co-amplifications of the ADH4 and CUP1 genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and 21 independent spontaneous amplifications have been isolated.

The general transcription factor IIB (TFIIB) is required for RNA polymerase II transcription in eukaryotes. It provides a physical link between the TATA-binding protein (TBP) and the RNA polymerase and is a component previously suggested to respond to transcriptional activators in vitro. In this report, we compare the yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and human forms of the protein in yeast cells to study their functional differences. We demonstrate that human TFIIB fails to functionally replace yeast TFIIB in yeast cells. By analyzing various human-yeast hybrid TFIIB molecules, we show that a 14-amino-acid region at the amino terminus of the first repeat of yeast TFIIB plays an important role in determining species specificity in vivo. In addition, we identify four amino acids in this region that are critical for an amphipathic helix unique to yeast TFIIB. By site-directed mutagenesis analyses we demonstrate that these four amino acids are important for yeast TFIIB's activity in vivo. Finally, we show that mutations in the species-specific region of yeast TFIIB can differentially affect the expression of genes activated by different activators in vivo. These results provide strong evidence suggesting that yeast TFIIB is involved in the process of transcriptional activation in living cells.

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The general transcription factor TFIIB is a key component in the eukaryotic RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) transcriptional machinery. We have previously shown that a yeast TFIIB mutant (called YR1m4) with four amino acid residues in a species-specific region changed to corresponding human residues affects the expression of genes activated by different activators in vivo. We report here that YR1m4 can interact with several affected activators in vitro. In addition, YR1m4 and other mutants with amino acid alterations within the same region can interact with TATA-binding protein (TBP) and RNAPII normally. However, YR1m4 is defective in supporting activator-independent transcription in assays con-ducted both in vitro and in vivo. We further demonstrate that the interaction between the C-terminal core domain and the N-terminal region is weakened in YR1m4 and other related TFIIB mutants. These results suggest that the intramolecular interaction property of yeast TFIIB plays an important role in transcription regulation in cells.

Five spontaneous amplifications of the ADH4 gene were identified among 1,894 antimycin A-resistant mutants isolated from a diploid strain after growth at 15 degrees. Four of these amplifications are approximately 40-kb linear extrachromosomal palindromes carrying telomere homologous sequences at each end similar to a previously isolated amplification. ADH4 is located at the extreme left end of chromosome VII, and the extrachromosomal fragments appear to be the fusion of two copies of the end of this chromosome. The fifth amplification is a chromosomal amplification carrying an extra copy of ADH4 on both homologs of chromosome VII. These results suggest that the ADH system can be used to study amplification in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.