Deletions in the cob gene of yeast mtDNA and their phenotypic effect

Two cob- deletion mutants are characterized. One of them, M9410, is deleted for 911 bp of the noncoding sequences only which separate tRNAGlu and cob exon 1; it thus lacks most of the sequence encoding the 957 bp long cob leader (Bonitz et al. 1982) and some 20 bp 5' to it. The end points of this deletion coincide with 31 bp long direct repeats in wild type mtDNA. The other mutant, M9391, is deleted for all cob coding sequences and most of the cob leader sequence but it retains the 5' terminal 261 bp of this leader. Northern analysis revealed that M9410 totally lacks cob mRNA or pre-mRNA. The large deletion M9391 in contrast accumulates a 13S RNA which probably results from transcription through the junction, which ligates sequences of the cob leader to sequences of the cob-oli1 intergenic spacer.