Project description:Industrial wine yeast strains are geno- and phenotypically highly diversified, and have adapted to the ecological niches provided by industrial wine making environments. These strains have been selected for very specific and diverse purposes, and the adaptation of these strains to the oenological environment is a function of the specific expression profiles of their genomes. It has been proposed that some of the primary targets of yeast adaptation are functional binding sites of transcription factors (TF) and the transcription factors themselves. Sequence divergence or regulatory changes related to specific transcription factors would lead to far-reaching changes in overall gene expression patterns, which will in turn impact on specific phenotypic characteristics of different yeast species/ strains. Variations in transcriptional regulation between different wine yeast strains could thus be responsible for rapid adaptation to different fermentative requirements in the context of commercial wine-making. In this study, we compare the transcriptional profiles of five different wine yeast strains in simulated wine-making conditions: Comparative analyses of gene expression profiles in the context of TF regulatory networks provided new insights into the molecular basis for variations in gene expression in these industrial strains. We also show that the metabolic phenotype of one strain can indeed be shifted in the direction of another by modifying the expression of key transcription factors. SOK2 was one target transcription factor identified in this study. This expression factor was overexpressed in order to validate our hypotheses that altered expression levels of key transcription factors could shift metabolism in a directed, predicted manner.
Project description:Industrial wine yeast strains are geno- and phenotypically highly diversified, and have adapted to the ecological niches provided by industrial wine making environments. These strains have been selected for very specific and diverse purposes, and the adaptation of these strains to the oenological environment is a function of the specific expression profiles of their genomes. It has been proposed that some of the primary targets of yeast adaptation are functional binding sites of transcription factors (TF) and the transcription factors themselves. Sequence divergence or regulatory changes related to specific transcription factors would lead to far-reaching changes in overall gene expression patterns, which will in turn impact on specific phenotypic characteristics of different yeast species/ strains. Variations in transcriptional regulation between different wine yeast strains could thus be responsible for rapid adaptation to different fermentative requirements in the context of commercial wine-making. In this study, we compare the transcriptional profiles of five different wine yeast strains in simulated wine-making conditions: Comparative analyses of gene expression profiles in the context of TF regulatory networks provided new insights into the molecular basis for variations in gene expression in these industrial strains. We also show that the metabolic phenotype of one strain can indeed be shifted in the direction of another by modifying the expression of key transcription factors. SOK2 was one target transcription factor identified in this study. This expression factor was overexpressed in order to validate our hypotheses that altered expression levels of key transcription factors could shift metabolism in a directed, predicted manner. Fermentations were carried out in synthetic wine must in triplicate for both the control VIN13 strain and the SOK2 overexpressing strain. Sampling for RNA extractions were performed at day 2 of fermentation, during the exponential growth phase of the yeast cells.
Project description:A 244 K genome-wide array based comparative genomic hybridization study was carried out in a familial translocation t(2;6)(p25;p21) balanced in the mother (SDM) and unbalanced in her daughter (SD). In the past, this translocation has allowed to localize the HLA multigene cluster to chromosome 6. With microarray technology, confirmation of the chromosome localization of HLA system was easily obtained, showing that such approach may be applied to the breakpoint localizations of other familial structural changes when they are unbalanced. Of interest was the breakage of genes at the breakpoint localization, without any phenotypic consequence to the parent and allowing to constitute a map of « haplotolerant genes ». In addition, many genomic variants were detected with this technology, enlarging the possibility of analyzing their possible contribution to phenotypic diversity.
Project description:Oxygen additions play a critical role in winemaking. However, few studies have focused on how this oxygen affects yeast metabolism and physiology in wine making conditions. We performed microarrays to unveil the oxygen response in wine making conditions.
Project description:Wine biological aging is a wine making process used to produce specific beverages in several countries in Europe, including Spain, Italy, France, and Hungary. This process involves the formation of a velum at the surface of the wine. Here, we present the first large scale comparison of all European flor strains involved in this process. We inferred the population structure of these European flor strains from their microsatellite genotype diversity and analyzed their ploidy. We show that almost all of these flor strains belong to the same cluster and are diploid, except for a few Spanish strains. Comparison of the array hybridization profile of six flor strains originating from these four countries, with that of three wine strains did not reveal any large segmental amplification. Nonetheless, some genes, including YKL221W/MCH2 and YKL222C, were amplified in the genome of four out of six flor strains. Finally, we correlated ICR1 ncRNA and FLO11 polymorphisms with flor yeast population structure, and associate the presence of wild type ICR1 and a long Flo11p with thin velum formation in a cluster of Jura strains. These results provide new insight into the diversity of flor yeast and show that combinations of different adaptive changes can lead to an increase of hydrophobicity and affect velum formation.
Project description:Oxygen additions play a critical role in winemaking. However, few studies have focused on how this oxygen affects yeast metabolism and physiology in wine making conditions. We performed microarrays to unveil the oxygen response in wine making conditions. We extracted RNA from nitrogen-limited chemostats, simulating wine making conditions, sparged with nitrogen and 1%, 5% and 20% oxygen-nitrogen mixtures to achieve different dissolved oxygen levels representative of those found during wine making. These correspond to 0, 0.8, 4 and 11 micromolar dissolved oxygen
Project description:Genome expression analysis between the yeast wine strain L-846 (diploid heterozygous) and spore derived from it (diploid homozygous).
Project description:The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a model for biology and is also one of the most important microorganisms for food and drink production. Surprisingly, only a few genes involved in the adaptation to anthropic niches have been described until now. Wine fermentation and flor aging, which are performed by strains from two closely related groups of yeast, are two technologies that have opposite approaches toward oxygen, which results in contrasting lifestyles for yeast: fermentation growth on grape for wine yeast, and biofilm aerobic growth on ethanol and glycerol contained in wine for flor strains. This pair of environments and the associated yeast populations can be a model for studying adaptation to anthropic environments. In this project, we have obtained high-quality genome sequences of 20 yeast strains from 9 flor yeast, 9 wine yeast as well as EC1118 and haploid derivative 59A. Phylogeny and population structure analysis, based on GATK genotyping, enable us to characterize a group of flor yeast that is clearly different from wine yeast. A comparison of the genomes of wine and flor yeasts using various methods (PCA, nucleotidic diversity, McDonald Kreitman test, potentially impacted genes according to SIFT) enabled us to note divergent regions, or genes, with potential non-neutral evolution, and highly variant genes. The results of these genomic comparisons are echoed by the comparison of a wine and a flor yeast transcriptome. These methods, as expected, highlight key genes that are involved in FLO11 regulation as well as in biofilm growth, but they also revealed the presence of many allelic variations in genes that are involved in the sensing and regulation of osmotic pressure (such as SLN1, HKR1, SSK22, AQY2) and specific metabolic traits, such as the fructophily of flor yeast, which carry a fructophile allele of HXT3. More remarkable is the accumulation of mutations in multiple genes, which creates a pattern of convergent mutations in regulatory networks, as seen in FLO11 regulation or the HOG MAP kinase pathway. The rewiring of these regulatory networks is clearly one of the hallmarks of domestication for the flor yeast genome. Data presented here correspond to the comparison of Flor yeast P3-D5 and wine yeast K1-280-2B transcriptomes under conditions potentially enabling the production of a biofilm.