A genome-wide screen in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for genes affecting UV radiation sensitivity

The recent completion of the deletion of essentially all of the ORFs in yeast is an important new resource for identifying the phenotypes of unknown genes. Each ORF is replaced with a cassette containing unique tag sequences that allow rapid parallel analysis of strains in a pool by using hybridization to a high-density oligonucleotide array. We examined the utility of this system to identify genes conferring resistance to UV irradiation by using a pool of 4,627 individual homozygous deletion strains (representing deletions of all nonessential genes). We identified most of the nonessential genes previously shown to be involved in nucleotide excision repair, in cell cycle checkpoints, in homologous recombination, and in postreplication repair after UV damage. We also identified and individually confirmed, by replacing the genes, three new genes, to our knowledge not previously reported to confer UV sensitivity when deleted. Two of these newly identified genes have human orthologs associated with cancer, demonstrating the potential of this system to uncover human genes affecting sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents and genes potentially involved in cancer formation.