Abstract
Despite a billion years of divergent evolution, the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has long proven to be an invaluable model organism for studying human biology. Given its tractability and ease of genetic manipulation, along with extensive genetic conservation with humans, it is perhaps no surprise that researchers have been able to expand its utility by expressing human proteins in yeast, or by humanizing specific yeast amino acids, proteins or even entire pathways. These methods are increasingly being scaled in throughput, further enabling the detailed investigation of human biology and disease-specific variations of human genes in a simplified model organism.
Highlights
These methods are increasingly being scaled in throughput, further enabling the detailed investigation of human biology and disease-specific variations of human genes in a simplified model organism
While direct investigation of human biology can often be limited due to practical or ethical considerations, the wide array of model organisms available to researchers has allowed a remarkable amount of discovery into our own molecular functioning
The homology between humans and yeast, and the inherent tractability of yeast, has enabled researchers to expand its usefulness as a model for human biology, both by heterologous expression of human proteins, as well as by directly modifying yeast cells to humanize specific amino acids, proteins or even entire yeast pathways (Figure 2)
Summary
While direct investigation of human biology can often be limited due to practical or ethical considerations, the wide array of model organisms available to researchers has allowed a remarkable amount of discovery into our own molecular functioning. Studies have ranged in their degree of direct translation to humans, from using yeast proteins to identify targets for human drugs to large-scale replacement of yeast genes with their human orthologs [9].
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