Increased homologous integration frequency in Yarrowia lipolytica strains defective in non-homologous end-joining.

The ascomycetous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica has been established as model system for studies of several research topics as well as for biotechnological processes in the last two decades. However, frequency of heterologous recombination is high in this yeast species, and so knockouts of genes are laborious to achieve. Therefore, the aim of this study was to check whether a reduction of non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) of double strand breaks (DSB) results in a strong increase of proportion of homologous recombinants.