The relative rates of synthesis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae ribosomal proteins increase coordinately during a nutritional upshift. We constructed a gene fusion which contained 528 base pairs of sequence upstream from and including the TATA box of ribosomal protein gene rp55-1 (S16A-1) fused to a CYC1-lacZ fusion. This fusion was integrated in single copy at the rp55-1 locus in the yeast genome. During a nutritional upshift, in which glucose was added to cells growing in an ethanol-based medium, we found that the increase in the relative rate of synthesis of the beta-galactosidase protein product followed the same kinetics as the change in relative rates of synthesis of several ribosomal proteins measured in the same experiment. This demonstrates that the nontranscribed sequences upstream from the rp55-1 gene, which are present in the fusion, are sufficient to mediate the change in rates of synthesis characteristic of ribosomal proteins under these conditions. The results also suggest that a change in transcription rates is mainly responsible for the increase in relative rates of synthesis of ribosomal proteins during a nutritional upshift in S. cerevisiae.