Telomeric silencing of a natural subtelomeric gene

The heterochromatin at telomeres can repress the expression of reporter genes when they are transplanted into their vicinity. Although this transcriptional silencing has been widely characterized using reporter genes, the ability of telomeres to repress natural subtelomeric genes has remained uncertain. In a previous report we described telomeric silencing of a yeast retrotransposon. Here we describe the identification of a subtelomeric gene from Saccharomyces cerevisiae that is subject to natural telomeric silencing. In addition, we show that telomeric silencing is not a general feature of the first ORFs located adjacent to Telomere-Associated Sequences.