A method for identifying proteins involved in heat shock protein secretion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Yeasts have made a massive contribution to our lives in a variety of ways. They have been used for brewing, baking, pharmaceuticals and other industrial processes for a number of reasons.

They possess relatively simple growth requirements and can be cultured easiy. The conservation of most biochemical activities throughout a wide range of organisms has allowed for the use of S. cerevisiae as a model eukaryote which has contributed immensely to our understanding of cell biology. S. cerevisiae exists in a haploid or diploid state and can reproduce both asexually and sexually, having both the a and a mating types. It has a genome that has sixteen linear chromosomes and has been classified in the ascomycetes group of fungi. It is generally considered nonpathogenic except in a very small number of susceptible individuals. The entire genome of S. cerevisiae has been sequenced and is available on various public databases. The Saccharomyces proteome is currently being mapped, which covers the entire range of proteins and thier function. All of these factors allow us to use S. cerevisiae as a model for studying many processes of cellular function including secretion through temperature sensitive mutants, cellular and nuclear organization as well as protein function, for example, one model has utilized the Saccharomyces invertase protein as a marker for the external localization of a gene fused to a hybrid transcript (51). Being a nonpathogenic model organism allows us to utilize the qualities of S. cerevisiae to learn about other pathogenic organism including Candida albicans, C. dublienensis. Cryptococcoccus neoformans and other eukaryotic pathogenic fungi.