Systematic screening of nuclear encoded proteins involved in the splicing metabolism of group II introns in yeast mitochondria.

Studies of yeast, algae and plants have provided genetic and biochemical evidence that the splicing reaction of organellar localized group II introns either depends on proteins encoded by the introns themselves ('maturases') or encoded by other genes of the host organisms. However, only a few of those proteins have been identified to date and characterized in more detail. In order to find new nuclear encoded proteins that assist group II splicing, we screened a complete knockout library of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain BY4741 consisting of 4878 viable haploid clones.