Project description:Prolonged cultivation (>25 generations) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in aerobic, maltose-limited chemostat cultures led to profound physiological changes. Maltose hypersensitivity was observed when cells from prolonged cultivations were suddenly exposed to excess maltose. This substrate hypersensitivity was evident from massive cell lysis and loss of viability. During prolonged cultivation at a fixed specific growth rate, the affinity for the growth-limiting nutrient (i.e., maltose) increased, as evident from a decreasing residual maltose concentration. Furthermore, the capacity of maltose-dependent proton uptake increased up to 2.5-fold during prolonged cultivation. Genome-wide transcriptome analysis showed that the increased maltose transport capacity was not primarily due to increased transcript levels of maltose-permease genes upon prolonged cultivation. We propose that selection for improved substrate affinity (ratio of maximum substrate consumption rate and substrate saturation constant) in maltose-limited cultures leads to selection for cells with an increased capacity for maltose uptake. At the same time, the accumulative nature of maltose-proton symport in S. cerevisiae leads to unrestricted uptake when maltose-adapted cells are exposed to a substrate excess. These changes were retained after isolation of individual cell lines from the chemostat cultures and nonselective cultivation, indicating that mutations were involved. The observed trade-off between substrate affinity and substrate tolerance may be relevant for metabolic engineering and strain selection for utilization of substrates that are taken up by proton symport. Keywords: Evolution
Project description:Prolonged cultivation (>25 generations) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in aerobic, maltose-limited chemostat cultures led to profound physiological changes. Maltose hypersensitivity was observed when cells from prolonged cultivations were suddenly exposed to excess maltose. This substrate hypersensitivity was evident from massive cell lysis and loss of viability. During prolonged cultivation at a fixed specific growth rate, the affinity for the growth-limiting nutrient (i.e., maltose) increased, as evident from a decreasing residual maltose concentration. Furthermore, the capacity of maltose-dependent proton uptake increased up to 2.5-fold during prolonged cultivation. Genome-wide transcriptome analysis showed that the increased maltose transport capacity was not primarily due to increased transcript levels of maltose-permease genes upon prolonged cultivation. We propose that selection for improved substrate affinity (ratio of maximum substrate consumption rate and substrate saturation constant) in maltose-limited cultures leads to selection for cells with an increased capacity for maltose uptake. At the same time, the accumulative nature of maltose-proton symport in S. cerevisiae leads to unrestricted uptake when maltose-adapted cells are exposed to a substrate excess. These changes were retained after isolation of individual cell lines from the chemostat cultures and nonselective cultivation, indicating that mutations were involved. The observed trade-off between substrate affinity and substrate tolerance may be relevant for metabolic engineering and strain selection for utilization of substrates that are taken up by proton symport. Experiment Overall Design: In a recent study (25) we analyzed glucose efflux upon exposure of S. cerevisiae to excess maltose, with yeast cells originating from âyoungâ chemostat cultures (<20 generations). In these experiments no cell lysis was observed upon exposure to excess maltose. However, in further work on this subject, we observed an apparent effect of chemostat culture age on transport capacity. The aim of the present study was to further investigate the effect of prolonged maltose-limited chemostat cultivation on the physiology of S. cerevisiae. To this end we monitored the affinity for maltose, genome-wide transcript levels, activities of key enzymes, and physiological responses to maltose excess during long-term cultivation in maltose-limited chemostat cultures. Experiment Overall Design: Jansen, M. L. A., J. H. de Winde, and J. T. Pronk. 2002. Hxt-carrier-mediated glucose efflux upon exposure of Saccharomyces cerevisiaeSaccharomyces cerevisiae to excess maltose. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 68:4259-4265.
Project description:Aims: We performed an analysis of maltotriose utilization by 52 Saccharomyces yeast strains able to ferment maltose efficiently and correlated the observed phenotypes with differences in the copy number of genes possibly involved in maltotriose utilization by yeast cells. Methods and Results: The analysis of maltose and maltotriose utilization by laboratory and industrial strains of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces pastorianus (a natural S. cerevisiae/Saccharomyces bayanus hybrid) was carried out using microscale liquid cultivation, as well as in aerobic batch cultures. All strains utilize maltose efficiently as a carbon source, but three different phenotypes were observed for maltotriose utilization: efficient growth, slow/delayed growth and no growth. Through microarray karyotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis blots, we analysed the copy number and localization of several maltose-related genes in selected S. cerevisiae strains. While most strains lacked the MPH2 and MPH3 transporter genes, almost all strains analysed had the AGT1 gene and increased copy number of MALx1 permeases. Conclusions: Our results showed that S. pastorianus yeast strains utilized maltotriose more efficiently than S. cerevisiae strains and highlighted the importance of the AGT1 gene for efficient maltotriose utilization by S. cerevisiae yeasts. Significance and Impact of the Study: Our results revealed new maltotriose utilization phenotypes, contributing to a better understanding of the metabolism of this carbon source for improved fermentation by Saccharomyces yeasts.
Project description:In response to limited nitrogen and abundant carbon sources, diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains undergo a filamentous transition in cell growth as part of pseudohyphal differentiation. Use of the disaccharide maltose as the principal carbon source, in contrast to the preferred nutrient monosaccharide glucose, has been shown to induce a hyper-filamentous growth phenotype in a strain deficient for GPA2 which codes for a Galpha protein component that interacts with the glucose-sensing receptor Gpr1p to regulate filamentous growth. In this report, we compare the global transcript and proteomic profiles of wild-type and Gpa2p deficient diploid yeast strains grown on both rich and nitrogen starved maltose media. We find that deletion of GPA2 results in significantly different transcript and protein profiles when switching from rich to nitrogen starvation media. The results are discussed with a focus on the genes associated with carbon utilization, or regulation thereof, and a model for the contribution of carbon sensing/metabolism-based signal transduction to pseudohyphal differentiation is proposed. Keywords: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, nitrogen starvation, maltose, pseudohyphal differentiation, yeast, expression profiling
Project description:Saccharomyces cerevisiae IMS0002 which, after metabolic and evolutionary engineering, ferments the pentose sugar arabinose. Glucose and arabinose-limited anaerobic chemostat cultures of IMS0002 and its non-evolved ancestor IMS0001 were subjected to transcriptome analysis to identify key genetic changes contributing to efficient arabinose utilization by strain IMS0002. Glucose- and arabinose limited anaerobic chemostat cultivation of strains IMS0002 and glucose limited IMS0001 at D= 0.03 h-1
Project description:In contrast to batch cultivation, chemostat cultivation allows the identification of carbon source responses without interference by carbon-catabolite repression, accumulation of toxic products, and differences in specific growth rate. This study focuses on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, grown in aerobic, carbon-limited chemostat cultures. Genome-wide transcript levels and in vivo fluxes were compared for growth on two sugars, glucose and maltose, and for two C2-compounds, ethanol and acetate. In contrast to previous reports on batch cultures, few genes (180 genes) responded to changes of the carbon source by a changed transcript level. Very few transcript levels were changed when glucose as the growth-limiting nutrient was compared with maltose (33 transcripts), or when acetate was compared with ethanol (16 transcripts). Although metabolic flux analysis using a stoichiometric model revealed major changes in the central carbon metabolism, only 117 genes exhibited a significantly different transcript level when sugars and C2-compounds were provided as the growthlimiting nutrient. Despite the extensive knowledge on carbon source regulation in yeast, many of the carbon source-responsive genes encoded proteins with unknown or incompletely characterized biological functions. In silico promoter analysis of carbon source-responsive genes confirmed the involvement of several known transcriptional regulators and suggested the involvement of additional regulators. Transcripts involved in the glyoxylate cycle and gluconeogenesis showed a good correlation with in vivo fluxes. This correlation was, however, not observed for other important pathways, including the pentose-phosphate pathway, tricarboxylic acid cycle, and, in particular, glycolysis. These results indicate that in vivo fluxes in the central carbon metabolism of S. cerevisiae grown in steadystate, carbon-limited chemostat cultures are controlled to a large extent via post-transcriptional mechanisms. Keywords: medium composition
Project description:Extremely low specific growth rates (below 0.01 h-1) represent a largely unexplored area of microbial physiology. Retentostats enable controlled, energy-limited cultivation at near-zero specific growth rates while avoiding starvation. In this study, anaerobic, glucose-limited retentostats were used to analyze physiological and genome-wide transcriptional responses of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to cultivation at near-zero specific growth rates. Cultures at near-zero specific growth rates exhibited several characteristics previously associated with quiescence, including accumulation of storage polymers and an increased expression of genes involved in storage metabolism, autophagy and exit from the replicative cell cycle into G0. Analysis of transcriptome data from glucose-limited retentostat and chemostat cultures showed, as specific growth rate was decreased, quiescence-related transcriptional responses already set in at specific growth rates above 0.025 h-1. Many genes involved in mitochondrial processes were specifically upregulated at near-zero specific growth rates, possibly reflecting an increased turn-over of organelles under these conditions. Prolonged (> 2 weeks) cultivation in retentostat cultures led to induction of several genes that were previously implicated in chronological ageing. These observations stress the need for systematic dissection of physiological responses to slow growth, quiescence, ageing and starvation and indicate that controlled cultivation systems such as retentostats can contribute to this goal.
Project description:Aims: We performed an analysis of maltotriose utilization by 52 Saccharomyces yeast strains able to ferment maltose efficiently and correlated the observed phenotypes with differences in the copy number of genes possibly involved in maltotriose utilization by yeast cells. Methods and Results: The analysis of maltose and maltotriose utilization by laboratory and industrial strains of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces pastorianus (a natural S. cerevisiae/Saccharomyces bayanus hybrid) was carried out using microscale liquid cultivation, as well as in aerobic batch cultures. All strains utilize maltose efficiently as a carbon source, but three different phenotypes were observed for maltotriose utilization: efficient growth, slow/delayed growth and no growth. Through microarray karyotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis blots, we analysed the copy number and localization of several maltose-related genes in selected S. cerevisiae strains. While most strains lacked the MPH2 and MPH3 transporter genes, almost all strains analysed had the AGT1 gene and increased copy number of MALx1 permeases. Conclusions: Our results showed that S. pastorianus yeast strains utilized maltotriose more efficiently than S. cerevisiae strains and highlighted the importance of the AGT1 gene for efficient maltotriose utilization by S. cerevisiae yeasts. Significance and Impact of the Study: Our results revealed new maltotriose utilization phenotypes, contributing to a better understanding of the metabolism of this carbon source for improved fermentation by Saccharomyces yeasts. Set of arrays organized by shared biological context, such as organism, tumors types, processes, etc.
Project description:Investigation of whole genome gene expression level changes in three S. cerevisiae Y55 mutants, compared to the wild-type strain. The UV-induced mutations enable the mutant strains to ferment high-gravity maltose faster than the WT. The mutants analyzed in this study are further described in Baerends, R.J.S., J.L. Qiu, L. Gautier, and A. Brandt. A high-throughput system for screening of fast-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. Manuscript in preparation.