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Article
Nature Genetics  14, 42 - 49 (1996)
doi:10.1038/ng0996-42

Yeast SAS silencing genes and human genes associated with AML and HIV−1 Tat interactions are homologous with acetyltransferases

Cheryl Reifsnyder1, Joanna Lowell2, Astrid Clarke1 & Lorraine Pillus1, 3

  1Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Campus Box 347, Boulder Colorado 80309, USA

  2Departmentof Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado 80309, USA

  3e-mail: pillus@spot.colorado.edu

Silencing is an epigenetic form of transcriptional regulation whereby genes are heritably, but not necessarily permanently, inactivated. We have identified the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes SAS2 and SAS3 through a screen for enhancers of sir1 epigenetic silencing defects. SAS2, SAS3 and a Schizosaccharomyces pombe homologue are closely related to several human genes, including one associated with acute myeloid leukaemia arising from the recurrent translocation t(8;16)(p11;p13) and one implicated in HIV−1 Tat interactions. All of these genes encode proteins with an atypical zinc finger and well−conserved similarities to acetyltransferases. Sequence similarities and yeast mutant phenotypes suggest that SAS−like genes function in transcriptional regulation and cell−cycle exit and reveal novel connections between transcriptional silencing and human disease.

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