Generation of a large set of genetically tractable haploid and diploid Saccharomyces strains

Saccharomyces cerevisiae has proved to be an invaluable model in classical and molecular genetics studies. Despite several hundreds of isolates already available, the scientific community relies on the use of only a handful of unrelated strains. The lack of sequence information, haploid derivatives and genetic markers has prevented novel strains from being used. Here, we release a set of 55 S. cerevisiae and Saccharomyces paradoxus genetically tractable strains, previously sequenced in the Saccharomyces Genome Resequencing Project. These strains are stable haploid derivatives and ura3 auxotrophs tagged with a 6-bp barcode, recognized by a restriction enzyme to allow easy identification. We show that the specific barcode can be used to accurately measure the prevalence of different strains during competition experiments. These strains are now amenable to a wide variety of genetic experiments and can be easily crossed with each other to create hybrids and segregants, providing a valuable resource for breeding programmes and quantitative genetic studies. Three versions of each strain (haploid Mat a and Mat alpha and diploid Mat a/alpha all as ura3::KanMX-Barcode) are available through the National Culture Yeast Collection.