Genetic Reagents
Two types of mutations have proven to be useful for determining which genes depend on the function of a component of the transcription apparatus. For essential components of the apparatus (e.g. Rpb1), temperature-sensitive mutations are valuable because they permit conditional growth of cells and they allow the investigator to examine effects on gene expression at any point after factor inactivation. For non-essential components, we have used either point mutations which knock out the catalytic function of known enzymatic activities (e.g. Srb10), or complete deletion mutations (e.g. SRB5).