. For the first time, scientists have effectively inserted a crucial human characteristic into a yeast cell. Their research was recently published in the journalDaran-Lapujade’s lab introduced a characteristic to yeast cells that is regulated by a collection of 10 genes that humans cannot live without; they carry the blueprint for a process known as a metabolic pathway, which breaks down sugar to gather energy and produce cellular building blocks within muscle cells.
As a result, scientists often transfer human genes into yeast. Because yeast removes all other interactions that may exist in the human body, it creates a clean environment in which researchers can analyze a single process. “What if we take the same group of genes that controls the sugar consumption and energy production of human muscles into yeast?” Daran-Lapujade wondered. “Can we humanize such an essential and complex function in yeast?”
“We didn’t just transplant the human genes into yeast, we also removed the corresponding yeast genes and completely replaced them with the human muscle genes”, Daran-Lapujade explains. “You might think that you cannot exchange the yeast version with the human one, because it’s such a specific and tightly regulated process both in human and yeast cells.