Saccharomyces genome database informs human biology

Abstract

The Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD; http://www.yeastgenome.org) is an expertly curated database of literature-derived functional information for the model organism budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. SGD constantly strives to synergize new types of experimental data and bioinformatics predictions with existing data, and to organize them into a comprehensive and up-to-date information resource. The primary mission of SGD is to facilitate research into the biology of yeast and to provide this wealth of information to advance, in many ways, research on other organisms, even those as evolutionarily distant as humans. To build such a bridge between biological kingdoms, SGD is curating data regarding yeast-human complementation, in which a human gene can successfully replace the function of a yeast gene, and/or vice versa. These data are manually curated from published literature, made available for download, and incorporated into a variety of analysis tools provided by SGD.

A Yeast-Based Model for Hereditary Motor and Sensory Neuropathies: A Simple System for Complex, Heterogeneous Diseases

“…Although yeast and humans are separated by a billion years of evolution, a pairwise comparison of genes between these two species reveals more than 2041 groups of orthologs, representing 2386 yeast genes and 3673 human genes [40]. Moreover, there are more than 1000 functional complementation pairs, where a gene from one species can functionally replace (complement) its ortholog in the other [41]. This clearly indicates a significant conservation of function between such distant species, which opens a great number of research possibilities to explore.…”

Alternative Experimental Models for Studying Influenza Proteins, Host–Virus Interactions and Anti-Influenza Drugs

“…S. cerevisiae is more widely used than S. pombe has been termed the 'E.coli of the eukaryotic cell' [107][108][109][110]. As the yeast biochemical machinery is so similar to that of mammals, in many cases, mammalian proteins can functionally replace the relevant yeast ortholog [111]. These observations made yeast an in vivo test tube in which to study foreign proteins such as the bacterial pathogenic factors [112,113], mammalian transcription factors and steroid receptors [114].…”

“…Some of them are not available yet in any other model organism, For example, one-step knockout and knock-in processes [120,121], the availability of a knockout library of all non-essential genes, the ability to harbor a foreign gene at the number of copies desired and the availability of libraries with all yeast genes tagged with various tags, including GFP. Furthermore, as S. cerevisiae is a simple single-cell organism with just about 6400 genes, advanced bioinformatics and system-biology tools are most powerful and accurate in yeast [111]. Importantly, S. cerevisiae have been used to study viral-induced apoptosis, viral mediated cell cycle regulation [10] and for drug screening [122].…”

The 2018 Nucleic Acids Research database issue and the online molecular biology database collection

“…In the microbial genomics section, there is an update paper from the yeast-focused SGD ( 41 ) which now includes curated lists of yeast genes that can replace the functions of human counterparts or vice versa. The popular TADB, covering toxins and antitoxins, also presents an update ( 42 ), as does Subti Wiki ( 43 ), devoted to the biology of Bacillus subtilis .…”