Initiation of sporulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mutations preventing initiation

Mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that are unable to initiate sporulation, but can continue vegetative growth under conditions in which the wild-type strain sporulates, have been isolated and characterized. The mutations arose spontaneously as suppressors of the spd1 mutations, restoring the ability of spd1 mutants to grow on glycerol, and also spontaneously in cultures of a wild-type diploid strain undergoing sporulation in continuous culture. The mutations all conferred asporogeny, and were recessive in this respect to the wild-type, but dominant in acting as suppressors of the spd1 mutation. They fell into three complementation groups which corresponded to three unlinked loci, designated spo50, spo51 and spo53. None of these mutations was closely linked to the other initiation mutations defined by the spd1, spd3, spd4, cdc25, cdc28 loci, nor to the cell size control mutations whi1 and whi2. Loose linkage was detected between spd1 and spo53, and spo50, spd3 and spo53 were linked to their respective centromeres. The spo50, spo51 and spo53 mutations are not nonsense suppressors. Mutations in all three genes conferred similar highly pleiotropic phenotypes including: asporogeny; dominant suppression of both spd1 and spd3 mutations; aberrant cell morphology and viability loss on starvation; constitutive ability to reduce tetrazolium (which is subject to carbon source repression in the wild-type); and complete repression of the synthesis of several polypeptides that are subject to carbon source repression in the wild-type strain and derepressed in spd1 mutants derepressed for sporulation. A diploid strain homozygous for the spo50 mutation did not undergo either premeiotic DNA replication or meiotic recombination when transferred to sporulation media.