Saccharomyces cerevisiae Gis2 interacts with the translation machinery and is orthogonal to myotonic dystrophy type 2 protein ZNF9

► Saccharomyces cerevisiae Gis2 is the ortholog to the human disease gene ZNF9/CNBP. ► Gis2 and ZNF9/CNBP interact with the ribosome. ► Gis2 and ZNF9/CNBP upregulates cap-independent translation in mammalian cells.