23 Yeast Mutant and Plasmid Collections

Publisher Summary For the isolation of mutants, two basic principles can be followed. First, a large number of yeast mutants can be screened individually for a specific phenotype. An example of this screening approach is the replica-plating method. Second, growth conditions can be used that favor the growth of, and thereby enrich for, a particular set of mutants. The use of 5-fluoroorotic acid to select for uracil auxotrophic mutants is an example of this. In general, mutant isolation using the screening approach is more labor-intensive than the selective approach. However, sometimes selective systems are not sufficiently sensitive and many mutants are missed, especially those with reduced growth rates. In the era of whole genome analysis, these two approaches are also applicable for the analysis of deletion mutants. In this chapter, an overview of EUROSCARF strain collection is presented. It discusses the collection of deletion cassettes and the collection of cognate and regulated clones. The chapter also provides an overview of other yeast mutants and plasmid collections.