Dependence of the regulation of telomere length on the type of subtelomeric repeat in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, chromosomes terminate with ~400 bp of a simple repeat poly(TG^1-3). Based on the arrangement of subtelomeric X and Y' repeats, two types of yeast telomeres exist, those with both X and Y' (Y' telomeres) and those with only X (X telomeres). Mutations that result in abnormally short or abnormally long poly(TG^1-3) tracts have been previously identified. In this study, we investigated telomere length in strains with two classes of mutations, one that resulted in short poly(TG^{1- 3}) tracts (tell) and one that resulted in elongated tracts (pif1, rap1-17, rif1, or rif2). In the tell pif1 strain, Y' telomeres had about the same length as those in tell strains and X telomeres had lengths intermediate between those in tell and pif1 strains. Strains with either the tell rap1-17 or tell rif2 genotypes had short tracts for all chromosome ends examined, demonstrating that the telomere elongation characteristic of rap1-17 and rif2 strains is Tel1p-dependent. In strains of the tell rif2 or tell rif1 rif2 genotypes, telomeres with Y' repeats had short terminal tracts, whereas most of the X telomeres had long terminal tracts. These results demonstrate that the regulation of telomere length is different for X and Y' telomeres.