Tunicamycin resistance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: genetic studies

Tunicamycin is a nucleoside antibiotic complex produced by Streptomyces lysosuperficus which inhibits glycosylation. Several mutants have been isolated in this laboratory that are resistant to tunicamycin, of which the majority are recessive and a few are dominant. The mutations are possibly due to some loss of transport function or alteration in the membrane. These recessive mutations have been mapped to chromosome 1 by the 2 mu mapping method. Studies are underway to map the dominant mutations as well and to group these mutations into its complementation groups and to characterize them biochemically. Both mating types of these mutant strains have been generated in our laboratory.