2013/03/20 by Gareth A. Cromie, Cromie, Gareth A., Katie E. Hyma +15 · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #FOS: Biological sciences #Fermentation and Sensory Analysis #Horticultural and Viticultural Research #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #Wine Industry and Tourism
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1303.4835
openalex publication_date 2013/03/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is important for human food\nproduction and as a model organism for biological research. The genetic\ndiversity contained in the global population of yeast strains represents a\nvaluable resource for a number of fields, including genetics, bioengineering,\nand studies of evolution and population structure. Here, we apply a\nmultiplexed, reduced genome sequencing strategy (known as RAD-seq) to genotype\na large collection of S. cerevisiae strains, isolated from a wide range of\ngeographical locations and environmental niches. The method permits the\nsequencing of the same 1% of all genomes, producing a multiple sequence\nalignment of 116,880 bases across 262 strains. We find diversity among these\nstrains is principally organized by geography, with European, North American,\nAsian and African/S. E. Asian populations defining the major axes of genetic\nvariation. At a finer scale, small groups of strains from cacao, olives and\nsake are defined by unique variants not present in other strains. One\npopulation, containing strains from a variety of fermentations, exhibits high\nlevels of heterozygosity and mixtures of alleles from European and Asian\npopulations, indicating an admixed origin for this group. In the context of\nthis global diversity, we demonstrate that a collection of seven strains\ncommonly used in the laboratory encompasses only one quarter of the genetic\ndiversity present in the full collection of strains, underscoring the\nrelatively limited genetic diversity captured by the current set of lab\nstrains. We propose a model of geographic differentiation followed by\nhuman-associated admixture, primarily between European and Asian populations\nand more recently between European and North American populations. The large\ncollection of genotyped yeast strains characterized here will provide a useful\nresource for the broad community of yeast researchers.\n