Haploid yeast switch mating type by replacing the information present at the MAT locus. For example, an a cell will switch to an α cell by replacing the MATa allele with the MATα allele. This replacement of one allele of MAT for the other is possible because yeast cells carry an additional silenced copy of both the MATa and MATα alleles: the HML (homothallic mating left) locus typically carries a silenced copy of the MATα allele, and the HMR (homothallic mating right) locus typically carries a silenced copy of the MATa allele. The silent HML and HMR loci are often referred to as the silent mating cassettes, as the information present there is read into the active MAT locus.
These additional copies of the mating type information do not interfere with the function of whatever allele is present at the MAT locus because they are not expressed, so a haploid cell with the MATa allele present at the active MAT locus is still an a cell, despite also having a (silenced) copy of the MATα allele present at HML. Only the allele present at the active MAT locus is transcribed, and thus only the allele present at MAT will influence cell behaviour. Hidden mating type loci are epigenetically silenced by SIR proteins, which form a heterochromatin scaffold that prevents transcription from the silent mating cassettes.