PYEAST – A Computational Toolkit for Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genetic Engineering

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a widely used biotechnological workhorse in both academic and industrial settings. One reason for its continued popularity is the extensive legacy of genetic tools, developed over its long history of use, that enable precise manipulation of the S. cerevisiae genome. These tools have enabled extensive genetic characterization and dramatic re-programming efforts for applications ranging from fundamental research to industrial chemical production. However, existing software is often designed for automated pipelines and can be cumbersome to integrate into existing laboratories. Here we present a digital toolkit called PYEAST (Python Enabled Automated Strain Transformation) that encodes some of the most widely used methods for working with S. cerevisiae, modernizes them to leverage advances in DNA synthesis, and facilitates digital sequence management.