Yeast

Quick facts about yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae

1 gram of dried yeast contains about 20 billion cells

can grow anaerobically or aerobically

generation time at room temperature is about 2 hours

16 chromosomes, genome size 12.2 million base pairs (Mbp)

Readings about yeast

Wikipedia has a pretty good read on our yeast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_cerevisiae

A simple article about growth conditions

Salari, R., & Salari, R. (2017). Investigation of the best Saccharomyces cerevisiae growth condition. Electronic physician, 9(1), 3592. PMCID

These next articles are technical, so skim read, with the questions in hand (see below)

General article: Sherman (2002) Getting started with yeast. Meth. Enzymol. 350:3-41 (link to pdf file)

General manual: Schneiter Yeast Genetics, read pages 4 – 18 (link to pdf file) — can’t find active link Oct 2022

Review article: Duina, A. A., Miller, M. E., & Keeney, J. B. (2014). Budding yeast for budding geneticists: a primer on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae model system. Genetics, 197(1), 33-48. (link to pdf file)

Questions

1. What does it mean that yeast can exist in either a stable haploid state or a stable diploid state?
2. What factors limit growth of yeast cells?
3. True or False. We need to wear gloves while working with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast cells because they are potentially pathogenic to humans. Explain your answer
4. Define and contrast DNA transformation with gene cloning.
5. Define and contrast homologous recombination with gene conversion.
6. Define and contrast “essential” genes with “house keeping” genes.
7. How many base pairs of DNA are there in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae nuclear genome?
8. How many base pairs of DNA are there in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial genome?
9. Define and contrast ortholog genes with homologous genes.
10. True or False. Studying Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system for humans is limited because very few genes in yeast are orthologs to human genes. Explain your answer.