Massive QTL analysis identifies pleiotropic genetic determinants for stress resistance, aroma formation, and ethanol, glycerol and isobutanol production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Our findings represent an important step in our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of industrially relevant yeast traits and open new routes to study complex genetics and genetic interactions as well as to engineer novel, superior industrial yeasts. Moreover, the major role of rare variants suggests that there is a plethora of different combinations of mutations that can be explored in genome editing.