Incompatibilities Involving Yeast Mismatch Repair Genes: A Role for Genetic Modifiers and Implications for Disease Penetrance and Variation in Genomic Mutation Rates

Genetic background effects underlie the penetrance of most genetically determined phenotypes, including human diseases. To explore how such effects can modify a mutant phenotype in a genetically tractable system, we examined an incompatibility involving the MLH1 and PMS1 mismatch repair genes using a large population sample of geographically and ecologically diverse Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. The mismatch repair incompatibility segregates into naturally occurring yeast strains, with no strain bearing the deleterious combination. In assays measuring the mutator phenotype conferred by different combinations of MLH1 and PMS1 from these strains, we observed a mutator phenotype only in combinations predicted to be incompatible. Surprisingly, intragenic modifiers could be mapped that specifically altered the strength of the incompatibility over a 20-fold range. Together, these observations provide a powerful model in which to understand the basis of disease penetrance and how such genetic variation, created through mating, could result in new mutations that could be the raw material of adaptive evolution in yeast populations.