The 2 micron plasmid purloins the yeast cohesin complex: A mechanism for coupling plasmid partitioning and chromosome segregation?

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The yeast 2 micron plasmid achieves high fidelity segregation by coupling its partitioning pathway to that of the chromosomes. Mutations affecting distinct steps of chromosome segregation cause the plasmid to missegregate in tandem with the chromosomes. In the absence of the plasmid stability system, consisting of the Rep1 and Rep2 proteins and the STB DNA, plasmid and chromosome segregations are uncoupled. The Rep proteins, acting in concert, recruit the yeast cohesin complex to the STB locus. The periodicity of cohesin association and dissociation is nearly identical for the plasmid and the chromosomes. The timely disassembly of cohesin is a prerequisite for plasmid segregation. Cohesin-mediated pairing and unpairing likely provides a counting mechanism for evenly partitioning plasmids either in association with or independently of the chromosomes.

Keywords

Chromatin immunoprecipitation, Cohesin recruitment, Monohybrid assay, Nondegradable Mcd 1 p, Yeast plasmid segregation

Publication Date

8-19-2002

Publication Title

Journal of Cell Biology

ISSN

00219525

Volume

158

Issue

4

First Page

625

Last Page

637

PubMed ID

12177044

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1083/jcb.200204136

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