Mutations in the RNA polymerase II transcription machinery suppress the hyperrecombination mutant hpr1 delta of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The soh1, soh2 and soh4 mutants were isolated as suppressors of the temperature-dependent growth of the hyperrecombination mutant hpr1 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Cloning and sequence analysis of these suppressor genes has unexpectedly shown them to code for components of the RNA polymerase II transcription complex. SOH2 is identical to RPB2, which encodes the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II, and SOH4 is the same as SUA7, encoding the yeast transcription initiation factor TFIIB. SOH1 encodes a novel 14-kD protein with limited sequence similarity to RNA polymerases. Interestingly, SOH1 not only interacts with factors involved in DNA repair, but transcription as well. Thus, the Soh1 protein may serve to couple these two processes. The Soh1 protein interacts with a DNA repair protein, Rad5p, in a two-hybrid system assay. Soh1p may functionally interact with components of the RNA polymerase II complex as suggested from the synthetic lethality observed in soh1 rpb delta 104, soh1 soh2-1 (rpb2), and soh1 soh4 (sua7) double mutants. Because mutations in SOH1, RPB2 and SUA7 suppress the hyperrecombination phenotype of hpr1 mutants, this suggests a link between recombination in direct repeats and transcription.