Transmission of killer activity into laboratory and industrial strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae by electroinjection.

The killer character was electrically introduced into protoplasts of three yeast strains. These were the killer-negative variant of the K1 killer strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae T 158 C (his-); the killer-sensitive laboratory strain S. cerevisiae AH 215 (leu-, his-); and the killer-sensitive industrial strain S. cerevisiae AS 4/H2 (rho-). The killer dsRNA used for electroinjection was isolated from the super-killer strain S. cerevisiae T 158 C. Optimum numbers of transformed cells were obtained after regeneration and selection in appropriate media if the protoplasts were exposed to three exponentially decaying field pulses of 18.2 kV/cm strength and 40 microseconds duration at 4 degrees C. In the case of the killer-negative variant of S. cerevisiae T 158 C the majority of the protoplasts were transformed, whereas in the case of the two other strains the yield of transformed clones was much less. This latter result is expected if the expression of the electroinjected dsRNA was diminished in these two strains. Gel electrophoresis of the dsRNA of the clones of the three strains supported the conclusion that the transformed clones exhibited killer activity. The transformed clones of all three species were stable.