Differential expression of SUC genes: a question of bases

Non-coding nucleotide sequences located 5' upstream of the transcriptional start site play an essential role in gene expression as they contain binding sites for transcription and regulatory factors. The yeast SUC gene family is a useful model to study the influence that nucleotide exchanges within the promoter regions have on their expression, since (i) these genes, regulated by glucose repression, are differentially transcribed (invertase activity produced by distinct SUC genes may show variations of about 10-fold); and (ii) promoter sequences of SUC3, SUC4, SUC5 and SUC7 are more than 99% homologous, showing only six base exchanges among all of them. Comparison of these nucleotide exchanges with the expression of each SUC gene (located either on chromosomes or on multicopy and centromeric plasmids) points out that naturally occurring base exchanges as few as one nucleotide modification (G to A transition at position -497 relative to the translational start site, C to T transition at position -460 and insertion/deletion of a T at positions -590, -586 and -435) may have a strong effect on gene expression.