Structural instability of human tandemly repeated DNA sequences cloned in yeast artificial chromosome vectors

The suitability of yeast artificial chromosome vectors (YACs) for cloning human Y chromosome tandemly repeated DNA sequences has been investigated. Clones containing DYZ3 or DYZ5 sequences were found in libraries at about the frequency anticipated on the basis of their abundance in the genome, but clones containing DYZ1 sequences were under-represented and the three clones examined contained junctions between DYZ1 and DYZ2. One DYZ3 clone was quite stable and had a long-range structure corresponding to genomic DNA. All other clones had long-range structures which either did not correspond to genomic DNA, or were too unstable to allow a simple comparison. The effects of the transformation process and host genotype on YAC structural stability were investigated. Gross structural rearrangements were often associated with re-transformation of yeast by a YAC. rad1-deficient yeast strains showed levels of instability similar to wild-type for all YAC clones tested. In rad52-deficient strains, DYZ5 containing YACs were as unstable as in the wild-type host, but DYZ1/DYZ2 or DYZ3 containing YACs were more stable. Thus the use of rad52 hosts for future library construction is recommended, but some sequences will still be unstable.