Metabolic suppressors of trimethoprim and ultraviolet light sensitivities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae rad6 mutants.

Dominant mutations at two newly identified loci, designated SRS1 and SRS2, that metabolically suppress the trimethoprim sensitivity of rad6 and rad18 strains, have been isolated from trimethoprim-resistant mutants arising spontaneously in rad6-1 rad18-2 strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The SRS2 mutations also efficiently suppress the ultraviolet light sensitivity of the parent strains. They do not, however, suppress their sensitivity to ionizing radiation or their deficiency with respect to induced mutagenesis and sporulation. Such observations support the hypothesis that RAD6-dependent activities can be separated into two functionally distinct groups: a group of error-free repair activities that are responsible for a large amount of the radiation resistance of wild-type strains and also for their resistance to trimethoprim, and a group of error-prone activities that are responsible for induced mutagenesis and are also important in sporulation, but which account at best for only a very small amount of wild-type recovery.