A novel procedure for the recovery of hybrid products from protoplast fusion

Summary A protoplast mixture of two -mating type strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was encapsulated in a beaded form of calcium alginate gel. Part of the same protoplast mixture was embedded in a molten (50–55°C) agar overlay, a routine procedure for the recovery of regenerated colonies and hybrid products. The number of hybrid products isolated from the encapsulated protoplast mixtures was greater than that recovered from the agar overlay. The increase ranged from 40 to 1000 fold.