Budding yeast mutants showing constitutive basal levels of expression of DNA synthesis genes.

Two mutants have been isolated in Saccharomyces cerevisiae in which transcripts from at least CDC8, CDC9, CDC21 (TMP1) and POL1 genes are expressed constitutively in cells blocked at START by use of either alpha-pheromone or the cdc28 mutation. The transcripts from these genes also persist in mutant stationary phase cells; however, cell cycle regulation of these four DNA synthesis genes occurs normally in late G1. The mutation therefore does not appear to lie in the MCB-DSC1 (MBF) system that controls the periodic regulation of the genes, but must affect some control mechanism regulating basal levels of expression.