Chapter 15, Problem 15TYK

Summary Introduction

To review:

The hypothesis to explain the formation of two different mutant phenotypes produced by the transposition of a yeast TE element into the gene for the enzyme X. One mutant lacked complete enzyme activity whereas second mutant have five times more enzyme activity than normal cells.

Introduction:

Transposable elements in yeast belongs to a family of dispersed and repeated retrotransposons in the genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an important model organism to study the LTR (long terminal repeats)-retrotransposons biology. Five retrotransposon families are present in S. cerevisiae, designated as Ty1-Ty5. These Ty elements have a tendency to influence the genome organization. These Ty elements are the causal agents of mutation and genome rearrangment through recombination.