Mechanisms for coregulation of transcription of tandem genes in yeast remain largely speculative. This study focused on inositol-mediated regulation of the tandem gene pair SNA3-INO1. While the pattern of regulation of these two genes was similar, results showed that intermediate levels of inositol repressed INO1 and induced SNA3. Results also showed that inositol-mediated regulation of the SNA3 gene was not a function of its promoter but occurred from factors within the SNA3-INO1 intergenic region. The basic helix-loop-helix proteins, Ino2p and Ino4p, mediated this regulation through the upstream activation sequence (UAS)(INO) (E-box) sequences in the intergenic region. These results provide a model for studying coregulation of yeast tandem genes. This is especially significant given that many tandem gene pairs in yeast are coregulated even though context-specific UAS sequences are known only for one gene in the pair.
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