The SSB1 gene (formerly called YG101) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes a 66,601 molecular weight protein related to the hsp7O heat shock protein of other eucaryotes (1,2). The SSBI protein is 28% divergent from either of the yeast SSAI orSSA2 hsp70-related proteins and is 39% divergent from the Drosophila hsp70 protein (2,3). In contrast to the expression of the heat-induced SSAI gene, SSBI transcript levels decline upon heat shock (2,3,4). Limited sequence analysis of another heat shock cognate gene, SSB2 (formerly called YG103), shows less than 6% divergence in the amino tennini of the SSBI and SSB2 proteins, whereas the 5' non-protein coding regions are very dissimilar (3; L.S. Stinson and E.A. Craig, unpublished data), suggesting a possible functional difference between SSBI and SSB2 proteins. A functional difference has also been postulated to explain a similar abrupt divergence in nonprotein coding regions between the SSAI and SSA2 genes (5). Interestingly, a ssbl ssb2 double mutant strain is cold-sensitive for growth (6) while a ssal ssa2 double mutant is heat-sensitive (7), indicating a functional difference between the SSA and SSB subfamilies of hsp70-related genes (1,6).The SSBI nucleotide sequence was determined on both DNA strands by the chemical cleavage method and all overlaps were obtained. The 613 amino acid protein coding region for SSBI extends from nucleotide 210 to 2051 and the 5' end of the SSBI message maps to nucleotide 181 (± 5 bases) (2,4).