Current methods for Saccharomyces cerevisiae. II. Sporulation

Saccharomyces cerevisiae seems to be a particularly suitable model organism for studying eukaryotic differentiation. It is a unicellular eukaryote that can be approached with microbial genetic techniques. It undergoes meiosis and sporulation, a process analogous to gametogenesis in higher organisms. During meiosis, genetic recombination and chromosome segregation occur, leading to the generation of new genotypes. Sporulation takes place in a single cell, thereby eliminating the necessity of studying complex cell-cell interactions that occur during differentiation o of multicellular organisms.The intent here is to introduce the sporulation practicum of S. cerevisiae. Back-ground information is provided for facilitating the selection of strains and sporulation methods. The accompanying article (1) summarizes methods of growth, handling, and biochemical analysis of S. cerevisiae.