Aneuploid Responses

A recent exchange of papers is divided over the evidence for compensatory gene expression among wild strains of aneuploid yeast.

Written byCatherine Offord

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DOSAGE DEBATE: Analyses of gene copy number in wild strains of aneuploid yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) have come to different conclusions. © ISTOCK.COM/ALIENWORMZOND

The paper A.P. Gasch et al., “Further support for aneuploidy tolerance in wild yeast and effects of dosage compensation on gene copy-number evolution,” eLife, 5:e14409, 2016. Chromosomal commotion Like many organisms, lab yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is intolerant of aneuploidy. “In the lab strain that’s been most studied, cells with an extra copy of a chromosome have just crazy different expression across the transcriptome,” says yeast researcher Audrey Gasch of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. But wild yeast, Gasch’s team recently found, may not be so sensitive. Expressing differences In 2015, Gasch and colleagues published an analysis comparing RNA levels and DNA content in aneuploid strains of wild yeast (eLife, 4:e05462). Doubling gene-copy number ought to double RNA abundance, the team reasoned, but some genes in these ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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