TRANSCRIPTIONAL FACTOR MUTATIONS REVEAL REGULATORY COMPLEXITIES OF HEAT-SHOCK AND NEWLY IDENTIFIED STRESS GENES IN SACCHAROMYCES-CEREVISIAE

A computer-aided pattern search of the entire yeast genome was designe d and used to identify 186 putative stress response element-regulated genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transcript levels of eight of these candidate genes were examined, and three (37%) were shown to be heat shock- and DNA damage-inducible and to require the Msn2p and Msn4p tra nscriptional activators for stress regulation. Significantly, several heat shock protein (HSP) genes were identified in this computer search . Using a series of single and multiple regulatory mutants, we demonst rate unexpected regulatory complexities among the HSP genes from S. ce revisiae following heat shock.