Table of Contents

cover image

Volume 25, Number 3
08 February 2006

pp 447-653

Sectoring yeast - The genomic copy of the essential gene CTF7 has been deleted in the yeast strain shown. Viability is supported by a copy of CTF7 on a plasmid also carrying the ADE3 gene, which confers a reddish color to the yeast. Transformation of this yeast with a second plasmid containing a second copy of CTF7 allows for loss of the CTF7 ADE3 plasmid, resulting in white sectors in an otherwise red colony. This system allows one to determine if a mutant allele of an essential gene can support viability.

The photograph was taken by Alex Brands, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Robert Skibbens in the Department of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. The Skibbens lab studies sister chromatid cohesion in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

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