title: Heterologous URA3MX cassettes for gene replacement in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
abstract: Heterologous gene replacement cassettes are powerful tools for dissecting gene function in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Their primary advantages over homologous gene replacement cassettes include reduced gene conversion (leading to efficient site-specific integration of the cassette) and greater independence of strain background. Perhaps the most widely used cassettes are the MX cassettes containing the dominant selectable kanamycin resistance gene (kanr), which confers resistance to G418 (Wach et al., 1994). One limitation of the kanMX cassettes is that they are not counterselectable and therefore not readily recyclable, which is important when constructing strains with more than one gene deletion. To address this limitation, and to expand the choices of heterologous markers, we have created two new MX cassettes by replacing the kanr ORF from plasmids pFA6-kanMX3 and pFA6-kanMX4 with the Candida albicans URA3 ORF. These plasmids, pAG60 (CaURA3MX4) and pAG61 (CaURA3MX3) are identical to the kanMX cassettes in all other respects but have the added advantage of being counterselectable and therefore readily recyclable in S. cerevisiae.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: McCusker
mesh_terms: D002176:Candida albicans / Q000235:genetics; D015252:Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific / Q000235:genetics; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial / Q000235:genetics; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005800:Genes, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D005819:Genetic Markers / Q000235:genetics; D007612:Kanamycin; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional / Q000235:genetics* / Q000379:methods; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D009963:Orotic Acid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000378:metabolism; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins; D005819:Genetic Markers; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D007612:Kanamycin; D009963:Orotic Acid; C001242:5-fluoroorotic acid; C037725:SCEI protein, S cerevisiae; D015252:Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific