The Ecology and Evolution of the Baker's Yeast .

The baker's yeast has become a powerful model in ecology and evolutionary biology. A global effort on field survey and population genetics and genomics of in past decades has shown that the yeast distributes ubiquitously in nature with clearly structured populations. The global genetic diversity of is mainly contributed by strains from Far East Asia, and the ancient basal lineages of the species have been found only in China, supporting an 'out-of-China' origin hypothesis.

Improved redox homeostasis owing to the up-regulation of one-carbon metabolism and related pathways is crucial for yeast heterosis at high temperature.

Heterosis or hybrid vigor is a common phenomenon in plants and animals; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying heterosis remain elusive, despite extensive studies on the phenomenon for more than a century. Here we constructed a large collection of F1 hybrids of by spore-to-spore mating between homozygous wild strains of the species with different genetic distances and compared growth performance of the F1 hybrids with their parents. We found that heterosis was prevalent in the F1 hybrids at 40°C.

Adaptive Gene Content and Allele Distribution Variations in the Wild and Domesticated Populations of .

Recent studies on population genomics of have substantially improved our understanding of the genetic diversity and domestication history of the yeast. However, the origin of the domesticated population of and the genomic changes responsible for ecological adaption of different populations and lineages remain to be fully revealed. Here we sequenced 64 African strains from various indigenous fermented foods and forests in different African countries and performed a population genomic analysis on them combined with a set of previously sequenced worldwide strains representing the maximum genetic diversity of the species documented so far.

Reverse Evolution of a Classic Gene Network in Yeast Offers a Competitive Advantage.

Glucose repression is a central regulatory system in yeast that ensures the utilization of carbon sources in a highly economical manner. The galactose (GAL) metabolism network is stringently regulated by glucose repression in yeast and has been a classic system for studying gene regulation. We show here that a Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S.

The origin and adaptive evolution of domesticated populations of yeast from Far East Asia.

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been an essential component of human civilization because of its long global history of use in food and beverage fermentation. However, the diversity and evolutionary history of the domesticated populations of the yeast remain elusive. We show here that China/Far East Asia is likely the center of origin of the domesticated populations of the species.