In this report we described the cloning and characterization of ADA5, a gene identified by resistance to GAL4-VP16-mediated toxicity. ADA5 binds directly to the VP16 activation domain but not to a transcriptionally defective VP16 double point mutant. Double mutants with mutations in ada5 and other genes (ada2 or ada3) isolated by resistance to GAL4-VP16 grow like ada5 single mutants, suggesting that ADA5 is in the same pathway as the other ADA genes. Further, ADA5 cofractionates and coprecipitates with ADA3. However, an ada5 deletion mutant exhibits a broader spectrum of phenotypes than mutants with null mutations in the other ADA genes. Most interestingly, ADA5 is identical to SPT20 (S.M. Roberts and F. Winston, Mol. Cell. Biol. 16: 3206-3213, 1996), showing that it shares phenotypes with the ADA and SPT family of genes. Of the other SPT genes tested, mutants with mutations in SPT7 and, strikingly, SPT15 (encoding the TATA-binding protein) show resistance to GAL4-VP16. We present a speculative pathway of transcriptional activation involving the ADA2-ADA3-GCN5-ADA5 complex and the TATA-binding protein.