Chromosome level assembly and comparative genome analysis confirm lager-brewing yeasts originated from a single hybridization

Background: The lager brewing yeast, S. pastorianus, is a hybrid between S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus with extensive chromosome aneuploidy. S. pastorianus is subdivided into Group 1 and Group 2 strains, where Group 2 strains have higher copy number and a larger degree of heterozygosity for S. cerevisiae chromosomes. As a result, Group 2...

Phenotype-independent isolation of interspecies Saccharomyces hybrids by dual-dye fluorescent staining and fluorescence-activated cell sorting

Interspecies hybrids of Saccharomyces species are found in a variety of industrial environments and often outperform their parental strains in industrial fermentation processes. Interspecies hybridization is therefore increasingly considered as an approach for improvement and diversification of yeast strains for industrial application....

Engineering synthetic glycolytic pathways in Saccharomyes cerevisiae

In the past few decades, concerns on climate change have contributed to the development of biotechnological alternatives for petrochemical processes. In order to make these processes economically competitive, there has been an intensive search for improved, more efficient production organisms. In the past decade, genetic engineering of...

A Minimal Set of Glycolytic Genes Reveals Strong Redundancies in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Central Metabolism

As a result of ancestral whole-genome and small-scale duplication events, the genomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and many eukaryotes still contain a substantial fraction of duplicated genes. In all investigated organisms, metabolic pathways, and more particularly glycolysis, are specifically enriched for functionally redundant paralogs. In...

CRISPR/Cas9: A molecular Swiss army knife for simultaneous introduction of multiple genetic modifications in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A variety of techniques for strain engineering in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have recently been developed. However, especially when multiple genetic manipulations are required, strain construction is still a time-consuming process. This study describes new CRISPR/Cas9-based approaches for easy, fast strain construction in yeast and explores their...

One-step assembly and targeted integration of multigene constructs assisted by the I-SceI meganuclease in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In vivo assembly of overlapping fragments by homologous recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a powerful method to engineer large DNA constructs. Whereas most in vivo assembly methods reported to date result in circular vectors, stable integrated constructs are often preferred for metabolic engineering as they are required for large-scale...

amdSYM, a new dominant recyclable marker cassette for Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Despite the large collection of selectable marker genes available for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, marker availability can still present a hurdle when dozens of genetic manipulations are required. Recyclable markers, counterselectable cassettes that can be removed from the targeted genome after use, are therefore valuable assets in ambitious...