I would like to get myself up to speed with what is currently known to science about yeast transformation. Specifically, transformation of plasmids and linear DNA fragments. I am particularly interested in practical aspects, such as:
- What is salmon sperm for? What if I don't use it? What if I use more?
- What is the relationship between number of cells, amount of transforming DNA, and transformation efficiency?
- How does choice of electroporation cuvette gap size affect efficiency?
- What can I do to get more colonies after transforming my yeast?
- What steps can I skip to make the transformation quicker if I am doing an easy transformation?
- How do different genetic backgrounds and media affect efficiency? Are there any common ones that reduce efficiency substantially? Are there any uncommon ones that increase it substantially?
- What is the effect of post-transformation "recovery" time (eg. culture 12 h without selection and then plate on selective medium)?
- Is making spheroplasts worth it?
- Does the same transformation protocol work for different species (S. cerevisiae, S. pombe, C. albicans, etc.)?
- Is there a coherent theoretical framework for understanding what actually happens when yeast are transformed, as opposed to "you mix some chemicals with DNA and throw cells in, abra kadabra, transformants come out"? The sort of theory I'm asking about would be useful in predicting conditions for better efficiency.
I am not expecting you to comprehensively answer these questions in your answer. This would make for a very long answer, and each of these could be a question here in its own right.
Instead, I want the answer to name reference materials which can be studied to learn more about the points above. For example, recent reviews or textbooks by established experts in the fields would be quite useful.