Scientists build first synthetic yeast chromosome

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – An international team of scientists has built a modified yeast chromosome from scratch, the latest step in the quest to make the world’s first synthetic yeast genome, an advance that would lead to new strains of the organism to help produce industrial chemicals, medicines and biofuels. Instead of just copying nature, the team did extensive tinkering with their chromosome, deleting unwanted genes here and there. It then successfully incorporated the designer chromosome into living yeast cells, endowing them with new capabilities not found in naturally occurring yeast. “It is the most extensively altered chromosome ever built,” said Jef Boeke of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, who led the effort.