Mutants of yeast with depressed DNA synthesis

Seven temperature-sensitive mutants have been isolated in Saccharomyces cerevisiae which show a reproducible defect in DNA synthesis at the restrictive temperature. One of these is allelic with rna11 (Hartwell et al., 1970) but the remaining mutants define six complementation groups and probably represent six different genes. The gene symbol dds (for depressed DNA synthesis) is proposed. At the restrictive temperature, rna11-2, dds2-1 and dds6-1 show a rapid and almost total cessation of DNA and RNA synthesis, whilst protein synthesis continues for several hours. The remaining dds mutants show a reduced rate of DNA synthesis from the time of temperature shift (dd1, dds3, dds4) or a cessation of DNA synthesis at a later time (dds5). In some cases, RNA synthesis is affected concomitantly with, or soon after, the depression in DNA synthesis. Possible reasons for the phenotypes of these mutants, and for the relative absence of yeast mutants which are unambiguously and specifically affected in DNA synthesis, are discussed. In addition, we report the isolation of seven new alleles of known cdc genes and ten new mutants with a cell cycle phenotype that complement those already known.