YDL167C Gene Function in S. cerevisiae

Abstract

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a budding yeast, is a single-celled eukaryotic organism used to study molecular and cellular processes and pathways. Although the DNA sequence of all yeast genes is known, the function of over 1000 yeast genes is unknown. In this study, the potential function of YDL167C was examined using bioinformatics and wet lab experiments. Using the DNA and protein sequence of YDL167C, biological databases, such as “Gene Mania”, were searched to find likely protein domains and cellular localization information. The results of these investigations showed that the gene YDL167C had multiple connections with the genes NGR1 and EBP2. The function of NGR1 is RNA binding and it negatively regulates growth rate EBP2 localizes to nucleolus, needed for 25s rRNA maturation and 60s ribosomal subunit assembly. This shows the YDL167C gene has many connections to proteins that are involved in RNA binding. Next, a yeast strain bearing a knock-out of YDL167C was generated using a PCR-based method. Successful disruption of YDL167C with the URA3 gene was verified using a second PCR reaction. Finally, spot assays and morphological analyses were performed to compare the growth of ydl167c yeast to the wild-type strain. The results from the spot assay did not show more sensitivity with the knockout ydl167c deletion strain in the stress conditions: YPD 37°C high temperature, YPD plus 4% ethanol at 30°C, and YPD at 30°C compared to the wild type. The was a slight increase of sensitivity with the ydl167c deletion strain with the stress condition, YPD plus 0.5 M NaCl at 30°C compared to wild type.