Effect of MET31-MET32 promoter swap on Met31 function

Expression of yeast sulfur metabolism genes is controlled at the level of transcription (in which RNA copies of the gene are produced). Met4 activates the transcription of yeast sulfur metabolism genes by recruiting the general transcription machinery to the promoter (the DNA region just upstream of the gene that controls when that gene is expressed). Met4 lacks direct DNA binding ability and therefore relies on two very similar DNA-binding proteins called Met31 and Met32 to bring it to the correct target promoters. Despite their protein similarities, Met32 mediates a greater portion of Met4-activated transcription than Met31. The expression profiles of Met31 and Met32 (which are presumably dictated by their different promoters) are very different. Therefore, we created a yeast strain in which the MET31 promoter is replaced by the MET32 promoter in the genome. We wish to see if this promoter swap allows Met31 to function more like Met32 in terms of mediating transcriptional activation by Met4. Therefore, we conducted RNA seq analysis on this strain in the absence of Met32 and compared it a matched strain which has an unaltered MET31 gene driven by its own promoter. These data were produced through RNA-Seq for the Next Generation, a project of the DNA Learning Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DUE #1323522

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