The Saccharomyces cerevisiae CRY1 gene encodes ribosomal protein rp59, a component of the 40S ribosomal subunit. Mutations in CRY1 can confer resistance to the alkaloid cryptopleurine, an inhibitor of the elongation step of translation. The nucleotide sequence of the cloned CRY1 gene was determined. The predicted amino acid sequence shows that CRY1 encodes a 14,561-dalton polypeptide that has 88% amino acid sequence homology to the hamster or human S14 ribosomal protein responsible for emetine resistance and 45% homology to Escherichia coli ribosomal protein S11. Analysis of the DNA sequences upstream from CRY1 revealed the presence of three sequences, HOMOL1 (consensus, A/TACATCC/TG/ATA/GCA), RPG (consensus, ACCCA/GTACATT/CT/A), and a thymine-rich sequence, found upstream of more than 20 other cloned yeast genes encoding components of the translational apparatus. We exploited the ability to assay the expression of CRY1 in vivo by using the cryptopleurine resistance phenotype to demonstrate that these three consensus sequences are necessary for the transcription of CRY1. We previously showed that the upstream promoter element of the yeast RP39A gene consists of these identical sequence motifs. Therefore, we suggest that these three sequences define a consensus promoter element for the genes encoding the yeast translational apparatus. CRY1 is one of several hundred yeast genes, including ribosomal protein genes, whose expression is transiently decreased 10-fold upon heat shock. We found that the HOMOL1 and RPG consensus sequences are not necessary for the heat shock response of CRY1.