Study of genome of Metschnikowia yeasts by molecular methods

Yeasts of the genus Metschnikowia belonging to the family Metschnikowiacea are yeasts characterized by vegetative propagation through multilateral budding. These are yeasts widely distributed in nature. More than 35 species occurring have been defined in the wild. They most often occur on flowers, fruits, but also on insects or human skin. They have a wide range of uses due to their antifungal effects in agriculture and the cosmetics industry. This bachelor thesis deals with the study of usage of molecular methods to characterize selected species of yeasts of the genus Metschnikowia. It focuses on a detailed description of the yeast cell structure, karyotype and methods of reproduction in the theoretical part of the work. In the practical part on optimization and description of molecular methods including pulse gel electrophoresis methods used to separate the yeast genome and their subsequent observation of changes in individual parts of genome. First, the yeast was cultured under special conditions that are characteristic of Metschnikowia yeasts, then yeast DNA was isolated using methods suitable for DNA isolation, which was further examined by the PFGE molecular method. The DNA isolation procedure was first optimized for individual yeast strains, as it was necessary to verify the required ratio of low melting agarose to isolated DNA. That was because of it was important for the resulting gel blocks to be suitable for measurement by PFGE analysis. By optimizing the method was possible to create ideal blocks of isolated yeast DNA, which were subsequently subjected to PFGE analysis. Several measurements of PFGE analysis were performed at different time intervals in order to separate small and large yeast chromosomes. The CHEF standard of the yeast Hansenula wingei and the standard of the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe were used for the measurements. According to the measurement results, it can be determined that the yeast DNA isolation procedure and subsequent analysis by pulsed gel electrophoresis were successful, as the number of chromosomes of all used yeast species of the genus Metschnikowia was determined