Cold-sensitive cell-division-cycle mutants of yeast: isolation, properties, and pseudoreversion studies

Abstract

We isolated 18 independent recessive cold-sensitive cell-division-cycle (cdc) mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in nine complementation groups. Terminal phenotypes exhibited include medial nuclear division, cytokinesis, and a previously undescribed terminal phenotype consisting of cells with a single small bud and an undivided nucleus. Four of the cold-sensitive mutants proved to be alleles of CDC11, while the remaining mutants defined at least six new cell-division-cycle genes: CDC44, CDC45, CDC48, CDC49, CDC50 and CDC51.--Spontaneous revertants from cold-sensitivity of four of the medial nuclear division cs cdc mutants were screened for simultaneous acquisition of a temperature-sensitive phenotype. The temperature-sensitive revertants of four different cs cdc mutants carried single new mutations, called Sup/Ts to denote their dual phenotype: suppression of the cold-sensitivity and concomitant conditional lethality at 37 degrees. Many of the Sup/Ts mutations exhibited a cell-division-cycle terminal phenotype at the high temperature, and they defined two new cdc genes (CDC46 and CDC47). Two cold-sensitive medial nuclear division cdc mutants representing two different cdc genes were suppressed by different Sup/Ts alleles of another gene which also bears a medial nuclear division function (CDC46). In addition, the cold-sensitive medial nuclear division cdc mutant csH80 was suppressed by a Sup/Ts mutation yielding an unbudded terminal phenotype with an undivided nucleus at the high temperature. This mutation was an allele of CDC32. These results suggest a pattern of interaction among cdc gene products and indicate that cdc gene proteins might act in the cell cycle as complex specific functional assemblies.