Insertion of non-homologous DNA sequences into a regulatory gene cause a constitutive maltase synthesis in yeast.

Two maltase constitutive alleles MAL1-1c and MAL1-2c were obtained as revertants from a defective mall-1 mutant allele not promoting maltose fermentation. Classical genetical analysis showed that the mutations were linked or allelic to the MAL1 locus. Dominance relations were established by testing alpha-glucosidase activities in diploids containing various allele combinations. The maltose regulatory genes belonging to the MAL1, MAL1-1c and MAL1-2c alleles were cloned. Differences in restriction sites were found between the wild type MAL1 and the derived MAL1-constitutive alleles. The MAL1 regulatory gene was located in a 1.15 kb EcoRI fragment (Rodicio and Zimmermann 1985a, b). An EcoRI fragment of this size was found in plasmids containing the MAL1 regulatory wild type allele but was absent from plasmids carrying the constitutive alleles. The genomic organization of the MAL loci in the constitutive mutants was confirmed by Southern analysis. Various fragments containing sequences of the different MAL1 alleles were used to probe genomic digests of MAL1, MAL1-1c and MAL1-2c strains. The results obtained support the conclusion that the constitutive mutations had arisen by a rearrangement between the original mal1-1 mutant allele and sequences with different location in the genome.