Efficient breeding of industrial brewing yeast strains using CRISPR/Cas9-aided mating-type switching.

ABSTRACT: Yeast breeding is a powerful tool for developing and improving brewing yeast in a number of industry-relevant respects. However, breeding of industrial brewing yeast can be challenging, as strains are typically sterile and have large complex genomes. To facilitate breeding, we used the CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate double-stranded breaks in the MAT locus, generating transformants with a single specified mating type. The single mating type remained stable even after loss of the Cas9 plasmid, despite the strains being homothallic, and these strains could be readily mated with other brewing yeast transformants of opposite mating type. As a proof of concept, we applied this technology to generate yeast hybrids with an aim to increase β-lyase activity for fermentation of beer with enhanced hop

SUBMITTER: Krogerus K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8557189 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature