Gene dosage alteration of L2 ribosomal protein genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: effects on ribosome synthesis

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the genes coding for the ribosomal protein L2 are present in two copies per haploid genome. The two copies, which encode proteins differing in only a few amino acids, contribute unequally to the L2 mRNA pool: the L2A copy makes 72% of the mRNA, while the L2B copy makes only 28%. Disruption of the L2B gene (delta B strain) did not lead to any phenotypic alteration, whereas the inactivation of the L2A copy (delta A strain) produced a slow-growth phenotype associated with decreased accumulation of 60S subunits and ribosomes. No intergenic compensation occurred at the transcriptional level in the disrupted strains; in fact, delta A strains contained reduced levels of L2 mRNA, whereas delta B strains had almost normal levels. The wild-type phenotype was restored in the delta A strains by transformation with extra copies of the intact L2A or L2B gene. As already shown for other duplicated genes (Kim and Warner, J. Mol. Biol. 165:79-89, 1983; Leeret al., Curr. Genet. 9:273-277, 1985), the difference in expression of the two gene copies could be accounted for via differential transcription activity. Sequence comparison of the rpL2 promoter regions has shown the presence of canonical HOMOL1 boxes which are slightly different in the two genes.