Translation initiation factor Prt1 was purified from a ribosomal salt wash fraction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells by ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE chromatography, phosphocellulose chromatography, sucrose density gradient centrifugation, and non-denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Prt1 protein cofractionates with four other polypeptides during all steps of purification suggesting that it is part of a protein complex containing polypeptide subunits with apparent molecular masses of 130, 80, 75 (Prt1), 40, and 32 kDa. Deletion of the first AUG codon in the published sequence of the PRT1 gene results in the synthesis of functional Prt1 protein indicating that the actual molecular mass of the Prt1 subunit is 82.7 kDa. This is in agreement with results from primer extension experiments reported earlier by Keierleber et al. (Keierleber, C., Wittekind, M., Qin, S., and McLaughlin, C. S. (1986) Mol. Cell. Biol. 6, 4419-4424). The Prt1-containing protein complex is an active translation factor as shown by its ability to restore translation in a cell-free system derived from a temperature-sensitive prt1 mutant strain in which endogenous Prt1 activity is inactivated by heating the extract to 37 degrees C. The question of whether the Prt1-containing protein complex represents the yeast homologue of mammalian translation initiation factor eIF-3 is discussed.