Adenine auxotrophy - be aware: some effects of adenine auxotrophy in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain W303-1A

Adenine auxotrophy is a commonly used genetic marker in haploid yeast strains. Strain W303-1A, which carries the ade2-1 mutation, is widely used in physiological and genetic research. Yeast extract-based rich medium contains a low level of adenine, so that adenine is often depleted before glucose. This could affect the cell physiology of adenine auxotrophs grown in rich medium. The aim of our study was to assess the effects of adenine auxotrophy on cell morphology and stress physiology. Our results show that adenine depletion halts cell division, but that culture optical density continues to increase due to cell swelling. Accumulation of trehalose and a coincident 10-fold increase in desiccation stress tolerance is observed in adenine auxotrophs after adenine depletion, when compared to prototrophs. Under adenine starvation, long-term survival of W303-1A is lower than during carbon starvation, but higher than during leucine starvation. We observed drastic adenine-dependent changes in cell stress physiology, suggesting that results may be biased when adenine auxotrophs are grown in rich media without adenine supplementation.