GENETIC EVIDENCE FOR INTERACTION BETWEEN NONHOMOLOGOUS PROTEINS IN YEAST AND A CASE OF SUPPRESSION AT THE HIS1 LOCUS

The HIS1 and THR4 loci are the structural genes for phosphoribosyl-ATP pyrophosphorylase and threonine synthetase, respectively. The allele his1-IS has no enzyme activity at 30", but does have activity at 15" provided the cell contains the wild-type THR4 allele or a suppressing allele at another locus, designated SUP(his1-1S). Under these conditions, cells with the hisl-IS mutation are capable of growth on minimal medium at 15". Three kinds of reversions of a hisl-IS thr4 sup(his1-IS) strain to histidine prototrophy have been obtained: (1) his1-IS locus reversions to HIS1 that restore growth without added histidine at 30", (2)  thr4 reversions to THR4 that simultaneously eliminate the requirement for threonine and restore the low-temperature effect on the his1-IS allele, and (3)mutations from sup to SUP. The SUP allele is not an ochre suppressor, and it is not linked to either HISI, THR4 or a centromere. It may represent a missense suppressor. I t is proposed that the effect ofTHR4 is caused by aggregation of the wild-type threonine synthetase with defective his1-IS monomers, causing a favorable conformational change in the histidine protein that restores limited enzymatic activity. This can be regarded as a case of complementation between nonhomologous proteins.