Team:Johns Hopkins/Project

As our inaugural project, we will set out to simplify one of the somewhat belaboring tasks in the felid of molecular biology, S. cerevisiae mating type elucidation. Baker’s yeast, S. cerevisiae, has become invaluable eukaryotic model for molecular biology research for numerous reasons. One of the main reasons is its utilization of proteins homologous to those found within humans, as well as many of the same biochemical pathways. Investigating many biochemical systems in yeast has provided insight on various genetic diseases found in humans. Also, because they are unicellular and therefore grow fast, they can be studied more readily than many other cell lines, especially those of higher eukaryotes. Another useful characteristic of yeast is its ability to exist in populations of different ploidy, either diploid or haploid. The process in which ploidy arises is governed by the yeast mating pathway, and is well studied. A haploid yeast cell is either mating type ‘a’ (MATa) or mating type ‘α’(MAT α). In the elucidation of biochemical and genetic processes in yeast, many times it is crucial to initiate sporulation of diploid yeast cells. After sporulation occurs, there are four haploid cells; two MATa and two MAT α. To continue analysis, usually differentiation between these cells is crucial, and this process can take from 2 to 3 days. We propose to cut this time by creating a construct containing fluorescent proteins that would allow for visual determination of S. cerevisiae mating type. To do so we would utilize the existing regulator proteins control the expression of specific fluorescent proteins