Yeast Actin-Related Protein ARP6 Negatively Regulates Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation of Yeast Cell

The yeasts, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris, are single-cell eukaryotic organisms that can serve as models for human genetic diseases and hosts for large scale production of recombinant proteins in current biopharmaceutical industry. Thus, efficient genetic engineering tools for yeasts are of great research and economic values. Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (AMT) can transfer T-DNA into yeast cells as a method for genetic engineering. However, how the T-DNA is transferred into the yeast cells is not well established yet. Here our genetic screening of yeast knockout mutants identified a yeast actin-related protein ARP6 as a negative regulator of AMT. ARP6 is a critical member of the SWR1 chromatin remodeling complex (SWR-C); knocking out some other components of the complex also increased the transformation efficiency, suggesting that ARP6 might regulate AMT via SWR-C. Moreover, knockout of ARP6 led to disruption of microtubule integrity, higher uptake and degradation of virulence proteins, and increased DNA stability inside the cells, all of which resulted in enhanced transformation efficiency. Our findings have identified molecular and cellular mechanisms regulating AMT and a potential target for enhancing the transformation efficiency in yeast cells.