# Using Experimental Evolution to Correct Mother-Daughter Separation Defects in Brewing Yeast

## TL;DR

This study uses experimental evolution to reduce a clustering defect in brewing yeast, showing how undesirable traits in industrial strains can be selected against.

## Contribution

The novelty is applying experimental evolution to correct a mother-daughter separation defect in a brewing yeast strain.

## Key findings

- Three yeast populations were evolved over 200 generations to reduce mother-daughter separation defects.
- The evolved strains showed reduced cell clustering, indicating successful selection against the defect.
- This approach offers a practical method for improving industrial yeast strains without targeted genetic modification.

## Abstract

Brewers have domesticated many strains of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
with traits complementary to different beers, but these strains may also harbor undesirable characteristics. One example is the mother-daughter separation defect (MDSD) which is present in London Ale III, a popular brewing strain, and causes cells to form large clusters. MDSDs can be caused by mutations to several genes, making targeted genetic approaches to reduce MDSDs challenging. We passaged three populations for over 200 generations to generate strains with reduced MDSD, demonstrating how experimental evolution can be used to select against undesirable traits in industrial yeast strains.