Field Inversion Gel Electrophoresis of Large DNA Molecules Extracted from a Saccharomyces cerevisiae Strain

Abstract

Electrokaryotyping is one of the most recent and important methods for 
characterisation, and identification of yeast strains. Until now a great number of electrokaryotyping systems have been described, among which FIGE allow the separation of DNA molecules from 50 kbp up to 2 Mbp. Since such equipments have relatively high prices, we designed a new FIGE system based on apparatus already existing in our laboratory. This paper also describes an improved technique for obtaining intact chromosomal DNA molecules from a Saccharomyces cerevisiae S288c strain (ATCC 26108). We succeeded to obtain, by variation of electric field parameters, nine of the thirteen S. cerevisiae chromosomes normally isolated by FIGE, which allow us to consider that our system is highly competitive and can be used for obtaining data with taxonomical value.