Chemical transformation of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is typically performed in microcentrifuge tubes. However, when a large number of transformations needs to be carried out, such as in the preparation of knockout strain libraries, it becomes time-consuming. Therefore, there is a need for a high-throughput method of transformation. In this thesis, we aimed to develop a procedure that would save time in such tasks. We observed the growth of S. cerevisiae on a 96-well microtiter plate and prepared growth curves. We adapted the transformation protocol based on microcentrifuge tubes for transformation in the wells of a microtiter plate. Using the modified protocol, we transformed S. cerevisiae using plasmids and linear vectors. We found that the transformation of cells in the early exponential growth phase is at least 10 times more efficient than transformation of cells in the late exponential growth phase. Uniform dilution of overnight cultures appeared to be crucial for the diluted cultures to simultaneously achieve early exponential growth phase. Transformation on a microtiter plate is a promising method for high-throughput transformation of S. cerevisiae, enabling significant time savings. Further optimizations, such as using microtiter plates with a curved bottom and adjusting the heat shock time, may contribute to improving the efficiency of transformation.
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