In budding yeast, SIR proteins are found at the silent mating type loci, telomeres, and at the rDNA locus. At the silent mating type loci and at the telomeres, SIR proteins participate in transcriptional silencing of genes within their domain of localization. At the rDNA locus, SIR proteins are thought to primarily be important for repressing recombination between rDNA repeats rather than for suppressing transcription.