TaKaRa Aureobasidin selection

[Arnoud Kal]

Dear netters,

Did you see the advertisment of TaKaRa biomedicals, e.g.in Nature 178 (14 
dec 1995)? It describes an antibiotic called Aureobasidin A and 2 cloning 
vectors for yeast that contain a gene making the strains resistant to the 
antibiotic. Great advantage is that you can transform your cells and 
plate out on YPD or any desired medium, as long as it contains the 
antibiotic. We could also use it for making knockouts of genes that are 
essential for growth on minimal media. Also very usefull if your strains 
lack auxotrophic markers.

Sounds great, but does it work? Has anyone used it and is it affordable 
(leaving aminoacids out of the medium is cheaper than putting antibiotics 
in)? Please post your comments to the group or to me and I will summarize.

Arnoud.

Arnoud Kal
Department of Biochemistry
University of Amsterdam
Academic Medical Centre
Meibergdreef 15
1105 AZ Amsterdam
tel. +31-20-5665381/5665382
fax. +31-20-6915519