Public-good driven release of heterogeneous resources leads to genotypic diversification of an isogenic yeast population in melibiose

Abstract

Adaptive diversification of an isogenic population, and its molecular basis has been a subject of a number of studies in the last few years. Microbial populations offer a relatively convenient model system to study this question. In this context, an isogenic population of bacteria (E. coli, B. subtilis, and Pseudomonas) has been shown to lead to genetic diversification in the population, when propagated for a number of generations. This diversification is known to occur when the individuals in the population have access to two or more resources/environments, which are separated either temporally or spatially. Here, we report adaptive diversification in an isogenic population of yeast, S. cerevisiae, when propagated in an environment containing melibiose as the carbon source. The diversification is driven due to a public good, enzyme α-galactosidase, leading to hydrolysis of melibiose into two distinct resources, glucose and galactose. The diversification is driven by a mutations at a single locus, in the GAL3 gene in the GAL/MEL regulon in the yeast.