Identification of Novel Translation Related Genes in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Translation in eukaryotic organisms is a vital process in the gene expression pathway. This process requires control and precision to generate functional proteins that mediate cell activities. Previously, a large scale screening approach identified 80 novel Saccharomyces cerevisiae's genes that appeared to affect translation fidelity. In this current research, four candidate genes were selected for further investigation: YGR117C, YNL122C, YJR014W and YNL040W. The deletions of these genes were investigated for their effects on translation fidelity using plasmids, pUKC817, pUKC818 and pUKC819, containing premature stop codons, UAA, UGA and UAG, respectively, in LacZ cassette. A GAL1 inducible plasmid was used to test translation efficiency of these deletion strains. YNL040W and YJR014W were screened for genetic interactions with other translation genes. Altogether, our findings provide evidence for the involvement of the target genes in translation. It also supports the idea that there exist other novel translation genes that need to be investigated.