The Stability of Chromosomes in Yeast

CL mutants with high instability of chromosome III were UV-induced in haploid strain disomic for chromosome III. The obtained CL mutants can be divided into two groups: (1) CL2, CL3, CL7, CL11–L13 with elevated level of spontaneous inter- and intragenic recombination and (2) CL4, CL8 in which instability of chromosome III is not accompanied by elevation of mitotic recombination frequency. CL4 and CL8 mutants also show unstable maintenance of artificial minichromosomes with different chromosomal replicators and centromeric loci. The instability of chromosome III and minichromosomes in CL4 and CL8 is determined by two nonallelic genes designated ch14 and ch18. The role of ch14 and ch18 genes in mitotic chromosome transmission is discussed.