Humanized Yeast: Scientists Create Yeast With Important Human Genes

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Delft University of Technology scientists have created baker's yeast with human muscle genes:

Human muscle genes were successfully inserted into the DNA of baker's yeast by biotechnologist Pascale Daran-Lapujade and her team at Delft University of Technology. For the first time, scientists have effectively inserted a crucial human characteristic into a yeast cell. Their research was recently published in the journal Cell Reports.

Daran-Lapujade's lab introduced a characteristic to yeast cells that is regulated by a collection of 10 genes that humans cannot live without; they carry the blueprint for a process known as a metabolic pathway, which breaks down sugar to gather energy and produce cellular building blocks within muscle cells. Because this mechanism is involved in many disorders, including cancer, the modified yeast could be used in medical studies.

Now that we understand the full process, medical scientists can use this humanized yeast model as a tool for drug screening and cancer research," Daran-Lapujade says.

[...] We didn't just transplant the human genes into yeast, we also removed the corresponding yeast genes and completely replaced them with the human muscle genes", Daran-Lapujade explains. You might think that you cannot exchange the yeast version with the human one, because it's such a specific and tightly regulated process both in human and yeast cells. But it works like a charm!"

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