The conditional respiratory-deficient Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutant pet-ts2281 was complemented by an yeast genomic DNA library. The gene thus isolated was sequenced and proved to be identical to the known MSW1 sequence encoding mitochondrial tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase (Myers and Tzagoloff 1985). Compared to the wild-type, the ts2281 mutant allele of MSW1 contained a single T ~C transition leading to a Leu ---> Ser replacement at position 294 of the protein sequence. In addition to this mutational alteration, our sequence data for the wild-type gene differ from the originally published MSW1 sequence at five other DNA positions which affect two locally restricted regions of the polypeptide chain. As expected, at the non-permissive temperature ts2281 cells are specifically defective in mitochondrial trp-tRNA formation and, thus, in overall mitochondrial protein synthesis. In addition, the patterns of cytochrome b mRNA maturation intermediates were distinctly different in ts228t and wild-type yeast cells. The mutational effect of the observed amino-acid substitution in ts2281 is discussed in terms of weakened hydrogen bonding in the C-terminal half of the MSWl-encoded protein.