PRJNA269221
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genome sequencing
As a result of ancestral whole genome and small-scale duplication events, the genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae's, and of 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 ancestors of the Saccharomyces lineage, the duplication of glycolytic genes is purported to have played an important role leading to S. cerevisiae current lifestyle favoring fermentative metabolism even in the presence of oxygen and characterized by a high glycolytic capacity. In modern S. cerevisiae, the 12 glycolytic reactions leading to the biochemical conversion from glucose to ethanol are encoded by 27 paralogs. In order to experimentally explore the physiological role of this genetic redundancy, a yeast strain with a minimal set of 14 paralogs was constructed (MG strain). Remarkably, a combination of quantitative, systems approach and of semi-quantitative analysis in a wide array of growth environments revealed the absence of phenotypic response to the cumulative deletion of 13 glycolytic paralogs. This observation indicates that duplication of glycolytic genes is not a prerequisite for achieving the high glycolytic fluxes and fermentative capacities that are characteristic for S. cerevisiae and essential for many of its industrial applications and argues against gene dosage effects as a means for fixing minor glycolytic paralogs in the yeast genome. MG was carefully designed and constructed to provide a robust, prototrophic platform for quantitative studies, and is made available to the scientific community.