Genomic instability induced by chronic exposure of furfural in yeast

Furfural is a potential mutagenic agent. To explore the global effect of furfural on genomic intergrity, chromosomal alterations in 14 furfural-treated isolates of JSC25-1 strain were determined by whole genome SNP microarrays at a resolution about 1kb. Our results showed furfural exposure results in striking elevations of both mitotic recombination and aneuploidy events in yeast. The JSC25-derived isolates were plated on YPD plates containing 0.6 g/L furfural for 4 days at 30 degree. Single colonies were then picked and streaked on YPD plates. Such treatment procedure was carried out repeatly for 10 times. Finally, the genomic DNA of 14 independent isolates were extracted for SNP microarray analysis.