Team:BrownTwo/Implementation/yeast

Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Yeast is a well-characterized yet relatively simple eukaryotic model. This is important given that we wish our device to have eventual application to mammalian models in which abnormal gene regulation can lead to disease conditions.

One important consideration to keep in mind while switching from the E. coli standard to yeast is that the signals for transcription and translation differ. In E. coli, sigma factors dictate the act of transcription. There are few distinct sigma factors present and . In contrast to the limited availability of transcriptional regulators in E. coli, yeast contain an abundant amount of Cis- and trans- acting elements work in concert to

Another key disctinction between prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems is that, due to the extensive compartmentalization seen in eukaryotic cells, transcription and translation occur within different locations of the cell. Transcription of precursor mRNA molecules takes places inside the nucleus. Additional modifications are made to the precursor mRNA before it leaves the nucleus, one of the most noteworthy being the splicing of introns or non-coding regions from the mRNA. It is the absence of a comparable system of modifications in prokaryotes that provides the first barrier to cloning many mammalian proteins in E. coli. By nature of their physical separation, the two processes are also distinguished by a temporal independence of one another,

Kozak sequence 5' cap of mRNA required for initiation of translation in eukaryotes This is analogous to the RBS region in prokaryotes