Vol. 12, Issue 10, 1533-1539, October 2002

LETTER
Molecular Characterization of a Chromosomal Rearrangement Involved in the Adaptive Evolution of Yeast Strains

¹ Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular. Universitat de València, Spain; ² Departamento de Biotecnología de Alimentos, Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos, CSIC, València, Spain; ³ Institut "Cavanilles" de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva and Departament de Genètica, Universitat de València, Spain

Wine yeast strains show a high level of chromosome length polymorphism. This polymorphism is mainly generated by illegitimate recombination mediated by Ty transposons or subtelomeric repeated sequences. We have found, however, that the SSU1-R allele, which confers sulfite resistance to yeast cells, is the product of a reciprocal translocation between chromosomes VIII and XVI due to unequal crossing-over mediated by microhomology between very short sequences on the 5' upstream regions of the SSU1 and ECM34 genes. We also show that this translocation is only present in wine yeast strains, suggesting that the use for millennia of sulfite as a preservative in wine production could have favored its selection. This is the first time that a gross chromosomal rearrangement is shown to be involved in the adaptive evolution of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

[The sequence data from this study have been submitted to EMBL under accession nos. AF239757, AF239758, and AJ458340-AJ458367. The following individual kindly provided reagents, samples, or unpublished information as indicated in the paper: N. Goto-Yamamoto.]