Having taken some major forays into topics such as a
theoretical discussion of homothallism and variant life cy-cles, I thought that it might be valuable to conclude by
highlighting certain points of this article. We have seen that
the key genetic regulator of the life cycle of S. cerevisiae is
the mating-type locus, which is known through the naturally
occurring alleles, MATa and MATa. The studies of the life
cycle of this organism have revealed the molecular mecha-nisms by which MAT controls the different facets of the life
cycle (to program mating and sporulation) and the molecular
mechanism by which MATis controlled (to create homothal-lic behavior)