SMC6 (RHC18) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is a homologue of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe rad18+ gene and essential for cell viability, encodes a structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) family protein. In contrast to the rest of the SMC family of proteins, Smc1-Smc4, which are the components of cohesin or condensin, little is known about Smc6. In this study, we generated temperature sensitive (ts) smc6 mutants of budding yeast and characterized their properties. One ts-mutant, smc6-56, ceased growth soon after up-shift to a non-permissive temperature, arrested in the late S and G2/M phase, and gradually lost viability. smc6-56 cells at a permissive temperature showed a higher sensitivity than wild-type cells to various DNA damaging agents including methyl methanesulfonate (MMS). The rad52 smc6-56 double mutant showed a sensitivity to MMS similar to that of the rad52 single mutant, indicating that Smc6 is involved in a pathway that requires Rad52 to function. Moreover, no induction of interchromosomal recombination and sister chromatid recombination was observed in smc6-56 cells, which occurred in wild-type cells upon exposure to MMS.