Rewriting the Genome of the Model Eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae

• Published in: Resonance 2020-06, Vol.25 (6), p.801-816
• Main Authors: Sambasivam, Vijayan, Rao, Desirazu N, Chandrasegaran, Srinivasan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chromosomes; Consortia; Design; Education; General Article; Genomes; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science Education; Yeast
• ISSN: 0971-8044; 0973-712X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12045-020-0997-8

An international consortium of scientists has embarked on the total design and synthesis of all the 16 yeast chromosomes of the laboratory organism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Once constructed, the 16 synthetic chromosomes will be consolidated into a single yeast strain along with a new 17th yeast chromosome called the “neochromosome” which contains all the tRNA genes, to generate a designer eukaryotic genome, Sc2.0. The key criterion for the stream-lined yeast (Sc2.0) is that it should retain the same cell fitness and phenotype of the wild-type (Sc1.0), but show increased genetic stability and flexibility to enable future studies. All the 16 synthetic yeast chromosomes have been designed using BioStudio , an open-source framework that was developed specifically to design and construct chromosome-size fragments in silico. The completely redesigned Sc2.0 genome is a highly modified version of the S. cerevisiae genome, with a reduction in the size of ∼1.1 million base pairs, which is about 8% of the native genome. In 2017, the Sc2.0 consortium reported the complete synthesis and assembly of 6.5 individual yeast chromosomes in discrete strains and showed consolidation of 2.5 synthetic chromosomes (synIII/synVI/synIXR) into a single yeast strain that bodes well for the successful completion of the Sc2.0 genome.