Adaptive Laboratory Evolution of Ale and Lager Yeasts for Improved Brewing Efficiency and Beer Quality.

Yeasts directly impact the efficiency of brewery fermentations as well as the character of the beers produced. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in yeast selection and development inspired by the demand to utilize resources more efficiently and the need to differentiate beers in a competitive market. Reviewed here are the different, non-genetically modified (GM) approaches that have been considered, including bioprospecting, hybridization, and adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE). Particular emphasis is placed on the latter, which represents an extension of the processes that have led to the domestication of strains already used in commercial breweries. ALE can be used to accentuate the positive traits of brewing yeast as well as temper some of the traits that are less desirable from a modern brewer's perspective. This method has the added advantage of being non-GM and therefore suitable for food and beverage production.

Concomitant gastrin and ERBB2 gene amplifications at 17q12-q21 in the intestinal type of gastric cancer.

Our recent studies using comparative genomic hybridization showed that gain or amplification at the 17q12-q21 region is very common in the intestinal type of gastric cancer. Here, we describe a fluorescence in situ hybridization study with gastrin (GAS)-specific and ERBB2-specific probes on ten specimens of gastric carcinoma that, by using comparative genomic hybridization, showed 1) DNA copy number gain or amplification at 17q12-q21, a region known to harbor the GAS and ERBB2 genes (four cases); 2) gain of the entire chromosome 17 (three cases); or 3) normal copy number of chromosome 17 (three cases). GAS and ERBB2 protein expression was studied by Western immunoblotting from gastric cancer cell lines with or without gain at 17q12-q21 as well as a breast cancer cell line with ERBB2 amplification. Our results showed that simultaneous amplification of both GAS and ERBB2 was four- to ninefold in the tumors with the 17q12-q21 amplification. Both genes were amplified in the same nuclei, and the hybridization signals were localized to the same region of the nucleus. Overexpression of GAS and ERBB2 was observed by Western immunoblotting only in the gastric cancer cell line with gain at 17q12-q21. The ERBB2 amplification is also a recurrent change in breast cancer. To investigate whether the GAS amplification is unique in gastric cancer, fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis was performed on 40 breast cancer cell lines. The ERBB2 amplification was observed in 11 cell lines, but none of the lines showed the GAS amplification. This indicates that the formation of an amplicon, in which both the GAS and the ERBB2 genes are amplified, might be unique in gastric cancer, especially in its intestinal type, and that simultaneous amplification of both genes is important to the tumorigenesis of intestinal gastric cancer. We demonstrate here for the first time that a gene of a physiological hormone is amplified in tumors that originate from cells that normally secrete the hormone.

DNA copy number amplifications in human neoplasms: review of comparative genomic hybridization studies.

This review summarizes reports of recurrent DNA sequence copy number amplifications in human neoplasms detected by comparative genomic hybridization. Some of the chromosomal areas with recurrent DNA copy number amplifications (amplicons) of 1p22-p31, 1p32-p36, 1q, 2p13-p16, 2p23-p25, 2q31-q33, 3q, 5p, 6p12-pter, 7p12-p13, 7q11.2, 7q21-q22, 8p11-p12, 8q, 11q13-q14, 12p, 12q13-q21, 13q14, 13q22-qter, 14q13-q21, 15q24-qter, 17p11.2-p12, 17q12-q21, 17q22-qter, 18q, 19p13.2-pter, 19cen-q13.3, 20p11.2-p12, 20q, Xp11.2-p21, and Xp11-q13 and genes therein are presented in more detail. The paper with more than 150 references and two tables can be accessed from our web site http://www.helsinki.fi/lglvwww/CMG.html. The data will be updated biannually until the year 2001.