YEAST TRANSFORMATION

Erickson lab, 2011

(for library screening use large-scale protocol)

Starter yeast culture: Inoculate 5-10 ml of liquid medium with a couple of colonies of the yeast strain and incubate 1-2 days at 225 rpm and 30°C (or 2-3 days at room temp.) Use SCD –trp +leu media for AH109 yeast strain containing a bait plasmid; use YPAD for strains lacking plasmids.

1. In a sterile 250 ml flask, add portion of saturated overnight culture (usually around 5 ml) to 50 ml of YPAD media to produce an OD600 between 0.10 – 0.20

2. Incubate culture at 30°C and 225 rpm for 3 to 5 hours to obtain an OD600 between 0.4 and 0.7. For high transformation efficiency cells should go through two divisions and be harvested in mid-log phase (OD < 0.8).

3. Transfer culture to sterile 50 ml tube and pellet cells using centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 3 min; gently resuspend the cells in 25 ml of sterile water or TE; re-spin and gently resuspend cell pellet in 0.25 ml of 0.1M LiOAc/TE.

4. Assemble transformation reactions in sterile 1.5 ml microfuge tubes (in this order):

·        0.1 - 0.5 µg plasmid(s)

·        100 µg  boiled carrier-DNA (50 µl of 2 µg/ul boiled herring or salmon sperm DNA)

·        100 µl yeast cells

·        Short vortex to mix

·        600 µl LiOAC/TE/PEG  (5 ml stock = 0.5 ml 1M LiOAC + 0.5 ml 10X TE + 4 ml 50% PEG (MW ~3500))

·        Short vortex to mix

Note: include a negative transformation control where no plasmid DNA is added.

5. Incubate reactions at 30°C for 30 minutes.

6. Add 70 µl of DMSO to each reaction. Mix gently by inverting tubes, don’t vortex.

7. Heat shock: Incubate tubes in a 42°C water bath for 15 minutes.

8. Pellet cells: Spin at 10K rpm in a microcentrifuge for 20 seconds; pour of transformation mix and remove remaining liquid with a micropipettor.

9. Resuspend cell pellet using 0.5 ml of sterile water or YPAD media; stir the pellet by with a blue micropipette tip to gently resuspend – don’t vortex.

10. Plate 100 ul of cell suspension onto SCD (-trp for bait plasmids, - leu for prey plasmids) selection plates. Spread cells gently using minimal number of passes with cell spreader. Let plates dry for a few minutes with lids slightly ajar.

11. Incubate dried plates upside down at 30°C. Tiny colonies should be seen in 2 days. Pick colonies on day 3 or 4, or wrap plates in parafilm and store in refrigerator.

Notes from Clontech two-hybrid manual:

Herring testes carrier DNA (10 mg/ml)

Sonicated, herring testes carrier DNA in solution can be purchased separately (#K1606), or can be prepared using a standard method (Sambrook

et al., 1989). Just prior to use, denature the carrier DNA by placing it in a boiling water bath for 20 min and immediately cooling it on ice. Use only high-quality carrier DNA; nicked calf thymus DNA is not recommended.

50% PEG 3350 (Polyethylene glycol, avg. mol. wt. = 3,350; Sigma #P-3640) prepare with

sterile deionized H2O; if necessary, warm solution to 50°C to help the PEG go into solution. Autoclave.

10X TE buffer: 0.1 M Tris-HCl, 10 mM EDTA, pH 7.5. Autoclave.

10X LiAc: 1 M lithium acetate (Sigma #L-6883) Adjust to pH 7.5 with dilute acetic acid and autoclave.

 

YEAST MEDIA

• YPD medium

20 g/L peptone

10 g/L Yeast extract

20 g/L Agar (for plates only)

 

• For adenine-supplemented YPD (YPAD), add 15 ml of a 0.2% adenine hemisulfate

solution per liter of medium (final concentration is 0.003%, in addition to the trace amount of Ade

that is naturally present in YPD).  Or 100 mg adenine powder. Adenine hemisulfate tolerates autoclaving.


Add H2O to 950 ml. Adjust the pH to 6.5 if necessary, then autoclave. Allow medium to cool to ~ 55°C

and then add dextrose (glucose) to 2% (50 ml of a sterile 40% stock solution).

 

Note: If you add the sugar (20 g/l) before autoclaving, autoclave for 15 min; autoclaving for a longer period of time may cause the sugar solution to darken and will decrease the performance of the medium.

 

SD medium

6.7 g Yeast nitrogen base without amino acids (or 1.7 g ynb w/o ammonium sulfate + 5 g ammonium sulfate)

20 g Agar

850 ml H2O

100 ml of the appropriate sterile 10X Dropout Solution

• Adjust the pH to 5.8 if necessary, and autoclave. Allow medium to cool to ~ 55°C before adding

3-AT, cycloheximide, additional adenine, or X-gal (see below).

• Add the appropriate sterile carbon source, usually dextrose (glucose) to 2%, unless specified

otherwise for your application.

Notes:

• For 3-AT-containing medium, add the appropriate amount of 1 M 3-AT stock solution after autoclaving and

swirl to mix well. The concentration of 3-AT used in the medium depends on the specific bait plasmid used.

• 3-AT is heat-labile and will be destroyed if added to medium hotter than 55°C.

• 3-AT, a competitive inhibitor of the yeast HIS3 protein (His3p), is used to inhibit low levels of His3p expressed in a leaky

manner in some reporter strains (Fields, 1993; Durfee et al., 1993).