Peroxiredoxins are a family of abundant peroxidases found in all organisms. Although these antioxidant enzymes are thought to be critically involved in cellular defense and redox signaling, their exact physiological roles are largely unknown. In this study, we took a genetic approach to address the functions of peroxiredoxins in budding yeast. We generated and characterized a yeast mutant lacking all five peroxiredoxins. The quintuple peroxiredoxin-null mutant was still viable, though the growth rate was lower under normal aerobic conditions. Although peroxiredoxins are not essential for cell viability, peroxiredoxin-null yeast cells were more susceptible to oxidative and nitrosative stress. In the complete absence of peroxiredoxins, the expression of other antioxidant proteins including glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase was induced. In addition, the quintuple mutant was hypersensitive to glutathione depletion. Thus, the glutathione system might cooperate with other antioxidant enzymes to compensate for peroxiredoxin deficiency. Interestingly, the peroxiredoxinnull yeast cells displayed an increased rate of spontaneous mutations that conferred resistance to canavanine. This mutator phenotype was rescued by yeast peroxiredoxin Tsa1p, but not by its active-site mutant defective for peroxidase activity. Our findings suggest that the antioxidant function of peroxiredoxins is important for maintaining genome stability in eukaryotic cells.Peroxiredoxins are a family of thiol-specific peroxidases found across all kingdoms of living organisms (1-4). All peroxiredoxins conserve at least one cysteine motif at their active center. Many of them are known to form oligomers (5, 6). Peroxiredoxins can reduce a wide range of peroxides. Their peroxidase (7,8) and peroxynitrite reductase (9 -11) activities depend on the thiol-disulfide transition of cysteines supported by electron donors such as thioredoxin and cyclophilin (12, 13). In addition, peroxiredoxins have also been suggested to regulate redox signaling (1, 14, 15), likely through the reversible oxidation of cysteine to cysteine sulfinic acid (16,17). A recent study has demonstrated that the reduction of cysteine sulfinic acid requires ATP hydrolysis and is catalyzed by sulfiredoxin, which forms mixed disulfide intermediate with peroxiredoxins (18). Construction of null mutants in budding yeast is a powerful means to understanding the physiology of peroxiredoxins. Single peroxiredoxin-null mutants have indicated that none of the five peroxiredoxins in yeast is essential (20). However, a tsa1⌬ tsa2⌬ double mutant is much more sensitive to oxidative and nitrosative stress, suggesting that different peroxiredoxins might cooperate with each other in the antioxidant defense (11). Several lines of additional evidence lend further support to the notion that different peroxiredoxins might serve overlapping functions in the yeast cell. First, all yeast peroxiredoxins have thioredoxin peroxidase activity (7,8,20,25). Second, although peroxiredoxins are found in diff...