PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Maciej Maselko
AU  - Stephen C. Heinsch
AU  - Jeremy Chacón
AU  - William Harcombe
AU  - Michael J. Smanski
TI  - Engineering species-like barriers to sexual reproduction
AID  - 10.1101/079095
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 079095
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/04/079095.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/04/079095.full
AB  - We introduce a novel approach to engineer a genetic barrier to sexual reproduction between otherwise compatible populations. Programmable transcription factors drive lethal gene expression in hybrid offspring following undesired mating events. As a proof of concept, we target the ACT1 promoter of the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae using a dCas9-based transcriptional activator. Lethal over-expression of actin results from mating this engineered strain with a strain containing the wild-type ACT1 promoter.