In order to investigate ergosterol metabolism in S. cerevisiae we studied the CM8 mutant strain defective in the regulation of this pathway. A genomic multicopy library was screened to reverse the CM8 phenotype. This allowed us to characterize a new gene, FMS1, which relieves mutant phenotype by extragenic functional complementation. FMS1 may encode a 508 amino-acid protein. The predicted protein shares 35% identity with Cbp1p, a Candida albicans corticosteroid binding-protein. Fms1p also shows a weaker homology with monoamine oxidases. The construction of a FMS1 null-allele yeast strain demonstrated that this gene is not essential for yeast in normal usual laboratory culture conditions. The existence of a gene related to CBP1 of C. albicans in S. cerevisiae strongly suggests a possible function of steroid-binding proteins in yeast general physiology rather than in a process related to pathogenicity.