Yeast regulatory gene PPR1. I. Nucleotide sequence, restriction map and codon usage.

The PPR1 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae controls the transcription of two unlinked structural genes URA1 and URA3. The primary structure of this eukaryotic regulatory gene and its flanking regions has been established by the dideoxynucleotide chain termination method. Our data show an open reading frame of 2712 nucleotides, corresponding to 904 amino acid residues. The 3' untranslated messenger RNA region presents consensus yeast termination and polyadenylation sequences. The pattern of codon usage in the gene is clearly random. This result is discussed in relation to protein abundance and is compared with the codon usage in 20 yeast structural and regulatory genes and with that found for Escherichia coli genes.