Amino acid residues in Std1 protein required for induction of SUC2 transcription are also required for suppression of TBPDelta57 growth defect in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

The STD1 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was isolated independently as a multicopy suppressor of a dominant negative mutation in the TATA-binding protein and of a mutation in the Snf1/Snf4 kinase complex, suggesting that Std1 might couple the Snf1 kinase signaling pathway to the transcriptional machinery. In order to identify the protein domains that specify these activities of the Std1 protein, a plasmid library of randomly mutagenized STD1 genes was screened for loss of function alleles using complementation of the raffinose growth defect of a std1-, mth1- strain as an assay. One missense allele (P236S) with complete loss of function at 30 degreesC and four missense alleles (L173F, E225K, S269L and E274K) that conferred a temperature sensitive phenotype were identified. The C-terminal 20 residues of Std1 were essential for SUC2 derepression, whereas the deletion of the N-terminal 96 residues did not affect SUC2 gene induction. Std1 mutants that lost the ability to induce SUC2, were also unable to suppress the growth defect caused by the expression of the dominant negative TBPDelta57 protein, suggesting that these two genetic screens may be detecting the same biological activity.