A new putative gene in the mitochondrial genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

The 2200-bp ori2- ori7 region of the mitochondrial (mt) genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been sequenced on the genome of a petite, b7, excised at those ori sequences from wild-type strain B. The region contains an open reading frame, ORF5, which is transcribed into a 900-nucleotide (nt) RNA in both the parental wild-type strain and its derived petite, b7. This RNA uses as a template the strand used by most mt transcripts. Its start point is located 337 nt upstream of ORF5; and a messenger termination site has been found 900 nt downstream of the initiation site. These data suggest that ORF5 is a new mitochondrial gene. The G + C content of ORF5 is only 15.7%; 90% of the G + C base pairs of ORF5 are comprised in a palindromic G + C cluster similar to that present in the var1 gene. The coding capacity of ORF5 is 46 amino acids (aa), mainly represented by methionine, phenylalanine, arginine, valine, asparagine, isoleucine and tyrosine. The aa composition and the codon usage of ORF5 are reminiscent of those of var1 and of other intergenic ORFs.