Domestication reprogrammed the budding yeast life cycle
Journal article, 2022

Domestication of plants and animals is the foundation for feeding the world human population but can profoundly alter the biology of the domesticated species. Here we investigated the effect of domestication on one of our prime model organisms, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, at a species-wide level. We tracked the capacity for sexual and asexual reproduction and the chronological life span across a global collection of 1,011 genome-sequenced yeast isolates and found a remarkable dichotomy between domesticated and wild strains. Domestication had systematically enhanced fermentative and reduced respiratory asexual growth, altered the tolerance to many stresses and abolished or impaired the sexual life cycle. The chronological life span remained largely unaffected by domestication and was instead dictated by clade-specific evolution. We traced the genetic origins of the yeast domestication syndrome using genome-wide association analysis and genetic engineering and disclosed causative effects of aneuploidy, gene presence/absence variations, copy number variations and single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Overall, we propose domestication to be the most dramatic event in budding yeast evolution, raising questions about how much domestication has distorted our understanding of the natural biology of this key model species.

Author

Matteo De Chiara

University of Côte d'Azur

Benjamin P. Barré

University of Côte d'Azur

Karl Persson

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Industrial Biotechnology

Agurtzane Irizar

University of Côte d'Azur

Chiara Vischioni

University of Côte d'Azur

Sakshi Khaiwal

University of Côte d'Azur

Simon Stenberg

University of Gothenburg

Amadi Onyetuga Chioma

University of Gothenburg

Gašper Žun

Jozef Stefan Institute

University of Ljubljana

Katja Doberšek

Jozef Stefan Institute

Cristian Taccioli

University of Padua

Joseph Schacherer

University of Strasbourg

Uros Petrovic

Jozef Stefan Institute

University of Ljubljana

Jonas Warringer

University of Gothenburg

Gianni Liti

University of Côte d'Azur

Nature Ecology & Evolution

2397-334X (ISSN) 2397-334X (eISSN)

Vol. 6

Subject Categories

Evolutionary Biology

Ecology

Microbiology

Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

Genetics

DOI

10.1038/s41559-022-01671-9

More information

Latest update

10/25/2023