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Mol. Cell. Biol., Dec 1995, 6572-6581, Vol 15, No. 12
L Xu, M Ajimura, R Padmore, C Klein and N Kleckner
We describe the identification of a new meiosis-specific gene of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae, NDT80. The ndt80 null and point mutants arrest at
the pachytene stage of meiosis, with homologs connected by full-length
synaptonemal complexes and spindle pole bodies duplicated but unseparated.
Meiotic recombination in an ndt80 delta mutant is relatively normal,
although commitment to heteroallelic recombination is elevated two- to
threefold and crossing over is decreased twofold compared with those of the
wild type. ndt80 arrest is not alleviated by mutations in early
recombination genes, e.g., SPO11 or RAD50, and thus cannot be attributed to
an intermediate block in prophase chromosome metabolism like that observed
in several other mutants. The ndt80 mutant phenotype during meiosis most
closely resembles that of a cdc28 mutant, which contains a thermolabile
p34, the catalytic subunit of maturation-promoting factor. Cloning and
molecular analysis reveal that the NDT80 gene maps on the right arm of
chromosome VIII between EPT1 and a Phe-tRNA gene, encodes a 627-amino-acid
protein which exhibits no significant homology to other known proteins, and
is transcribed specifically during middle meiotic prophase. The NDT80 gene
product could be a component of the cell cycle regulatory machinery
involved in the transition out of pachytene, a participant in an unknown
aspect of meiosis sensed by a pachytene checkpoint, or a SPO11- and RAD50-
independent component of meiotic chromosomes that is the target of cell
cycle signaling.
Copyright © 1995, American Society for Microbiology
NDT80, a meiosis-specific gene required for exit from pachytene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
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