title: Four linked genes participate in controlling sporulation efficiency in budding yeast.
abstract: Quantitative traits are conditioned by several genetic determinants. Since such genes influence many important complex traits in various organisms, the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) is of major interest, but still encounters serious difficulties. We detected four linked genes within one QTL, which participate in controlling sporulation efficiency in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Following the identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms by comparing the sequences of 145 genes between the parental strains SK1 and S288c, we analyzed the segregating progeny of the cross between them. Through reciprocal hemizygosity analysis, four genes, RAS2, PMS1, SWS2, and FKH2, located in a region of 60 kilobases on Chromosome 14, were found to be associated with sporulation efficiency. Three of the four "high" sporulation alleles are derived from the "low" sporulating strain. Two of these sporulation-related genes were verified through allele replacements. For RAS2, the causative variation was suggested to be a single nucleotide difference in the upstream region of the gene. This quantitative trait nucleotide accounts for sporulation variability among a set of ten closely related winery yeast strains. Our results provide a detailed view of genetic complexity in one "QTL region" that controls a quantitative trait and reports a single nucleotide polymorphism-trait association in wild strains. Moreover, these findings have implications on QTL identification in higher eukaryotes.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Giora
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ben-Ari
authors.forename: Drora
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zenvirth
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sherman
authors.forename: Lior
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: David
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Klutstein
authors.forename: Uri
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Lavi
authors.forename: Jossi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hillel
authors.forename: Giora
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Simchen
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D001483:Base Sequence; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D004171:Diploidy; D005800:Genes, Fungal / Q000235:genetics*; D046228:Microarray Analysis; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D012331:RNA, Fungal / Q000378:metabolism; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013172:Spores, Fungal / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D018631:ras Proteins / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D012331:RNA, Fungal; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; C489015:RAS2 protein, S cerevisiae; D018631:ras Proteins