Yeast

Yeast for dummies

Since this is the first time that TU Delfts iGEM team is working with yeast, we faced a lot of small yeast-related 'challenges'. With this page we want to inform you about the basics and the pitfalls of working with yeast.

Auxotrophy

Shuttle vectors

Chromosomal integration

We encountered lots of problems with plasmids. Because we wanted our constructs to be universal (with the idea to make it suitable for ‘fast checking’) we tried maintaining a plasmid. As it turned out, yeast cells are not eager to maintain a plasmid and with our construct we suspect homologous recombination occurred. After transformation, a PCR on the transformed plasmid, obtained by isolation, showed two bands instead of the suspected single band, one being ! Integration of the plasmid is therefore advised! Checking of this can be quite gruesome optimizing the necessary PCR reactions on your transformed yeast colonies. Chromosomal isolation can therefore improve the steps.

Knock-out strains

Nomenclature