Characterization of UV-damaged repair genes in cells

The RAD4 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is essential for the incision step of UV-induced excision repair. A yeast RAD4 gene has been previously isolated by functional complementation. In order to identify the RAD4 homologous gene from fungus Coprinus cinereus, we have constructed cosmid libraries from electrophoretically separated chromosomes of the C. cinereus. The 13 C. cinereus chromosomes were resolved by pulse-field gel electrophoresis, hybridized with S. cerevisiae RAD4 DNA, and then isolated homologous C. cinereus chromosome. Here, we report the cloning and characterization of fungus C. cinereus homolog of yeast RAD4 gene. Southern blot analysis confirmed that C. cinereus contains the sequence homologous DNA to RAD4 gene and this gene exists as a single copy in C. cinereus genome. When total RNA isolated from C. cinereus cells was hybridized with the 3.4 kb BglII DNA fragment of the S. cerevisiae RAD4 gene, a 2.5 kb of transcript was detected. The isolated gene encodes a protein of 810 amino acids.