Abstract
Most phospholipid metabolic pathways in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are analogous to their mammalian counterparts. The biological tractability of yeast provides for an opportunity to rapidly determine functions of specific lipids or lipid metabolic pathways using both classical and chemical-genetic techniques. The recent generation of the yeast genome deletion collection revealed that approximately 75% of yeast genes are not essential for life. Coupling analysis of the yeast deletion collection with automation using high-throughput robotics enables yeast genetic screens to be more thorough and bypasses the requirement for library screens to identify genes of interest. Two high-throughput yeast genetic methods are described, systematic synthetic lethality and chemical genetics. Systematic synthetic lethality is based on the principle that inactivation of two genes separately has minimal effects on cell growth whereas inactivation of both genes simultaneously results in growth defects due to their shared requirement in a particular cellular process. Chemical genetics is the analysis of bioactive compounds to determine processes that regulate susceptibility to the compound under study, and provides powerful data regarding precise targets and mechanism of action that regulate action of the compound.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 102-108 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Methods |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 2 SPEC. ISS. |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2005 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Research Chairs program. We thank members of the Atlantic Research Centre and the Dalhousie Yeast Genetics Group for helpful discussions.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Molecular Biology
- General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't