Project description:The yeast Dekkera bruxellensis is as ethanol tolerant as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and may be found in bottled wine. It causes the spoilage of wine, beer, cider and soft drinks. In wines, the metabolic products responsible for spoilage by Dekkera bruxellensis are mainly volatile phenols. These chemical compounds are responsible for the taints described as ‘‘medicinal’’ in white wines (due to vinyl phenols) and as ‘‘leather’’, ‘‘horse sweat’’ and ‘‘stable’’ in red wines (due to ethyl phenols mainly 4-ethylphenol). Apart from the negative aroma nuances imparted by these yeasts, positive aromas such as ‘smoky’, ‘spicy’ and ‘toffee’ are also cited. Our goal was to identify the impact that the wine spoilage yeast Dekkera bruxellensis has on fermenting S. cerevisiae cells, especially on its gene expression level. To this end we co-inoculated both yeast species at the start of fermentation in a synthetic wine must, using S. cerevisiae-only fermentations without Dekkera bruxellensis as a control. All fermentations were employed in special membrane reactors (1.2 um pore size cut-off) physically separating Dekkera bruxellensis from wine yeast S. cerevisiae. Biomass separation with this membrane was done to abolish the possibility of hybridizing also D. bruxellensis probes on Agilent V2 (8x15K format) G4813 DNA microarrays designed just for S. cerevisiae ORF targets. The 1.2 um pore membrane separating both yeasts allowed the exchange of ethanol, metabolites and sugars during the fermentation.
Project description:The yeast Dekkera bruxellensis is as ethanol tolerant as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and may be found in bottled wine. It causes the spoilage of wine, beer, cider and soft drinks. In wines, the metabolic products responsible for spoilage by Dekkera bruxellensis are mainly volatile phenols. These chemical compounds are responsible for the taints described as M-bM-^@M-^XM-bM-^@M-^XmedicinalM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y in white wines (due to vinyl phenols) and as M-bM-^@M-^XM-bM-^@M-^XleatherM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y, M-bM-^@M-^XM-bM-^@M-^Xhorse sweatM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y and M-bM-^@M-^XM-bM-^@M-^XstableM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y in red wines (due to ethyl phenols mainly 4-ethylphenol). Apart from the negative aroma nuances imparted by these yeasts, positive aromas such as M-bM-^@M-^XsmokyM-bM-^@M-^Y, M-bM-^@M-^XspicyM-bM-^@M-^Y and M-bM-^@M-^XtoffeeM-bM-^@M-^Y are also cited. Our goal was to identify the impact that the wine spoilage yeast Dekkera bruxellensis has on fermenting S. cerevisiae cells, especially on its gene expression level. To this end we co-inoculated both yeast species at the start of fermentation in a synthetic wine must, using S. cerevisiae-only fermentations without Dekkera bruxellensis as a control. All fermentations were employed in special membrane reactors (50 KDa pore size cut-off) physically separating Dekkera bruxellensis from wine yeast S. cerevisiae. Biomass separation with this membrane was done to abolish the possibility of hybridizing also D. bruxellensis probes on Agilent V2 (8x15K format) G4813 DNA microarrays designed just for S. cerevisiae ORF targets. The 50 KDa pore membrane separating both yeasts allowed the exchange of ethanol, metabolites and sugars during the fermentation. Fermentations were carried out in synthetic wine must in duplicate for both the control S. cerevisiae (strain Lalvin EC1118) and mixed fermentation. Sampling of yeast S. cerevisiae for RNA extractions were performed at 22 h of fermentation, during the exponential growth phase of S. cerevisiae, at 92 h and 144 h of fermentation, during its early and late stationary growth phase and at 187 h of fermentation, during its phase of growth decline.
Project description:Caldicellulosiruptor bescii is an anaerobic hyper thermophile that can utilize a wide range of substrates. However, inhibitors released from biomass can result in unfavorable growth conditions and limit bioconversion to products. Medium as well as intracellular pH are conditions critical for growth and prone to change in effect of fermentation end or by products such as, CO2, organic acids etc. Growth pH for C. bescii as currently reported is a narrow range of 6.8-7.3. In this study, we examined the physiological and systems level responses of C. bescii to growth at acidic pH. Samples collected from bottles, controlled batch, fed-batch and chemostat systems were subjected to growth, product and integrated omics profiling. It was discovered that in batch reactors, lowering pH from 7.2 to 6.0 at the mid-log phase, led to a significant increase in growth and product yields. Time course transcriptomics data collected from these batch reactors was analyzed to try and get a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms for improved growth.
Project description:Microbubbles are micron-sized bubbles generated using a fluidic oscillator. They have the potential to decrease the cost of biotechnology processes through decreasing the energy required for aeration and mixing. Propagation of yeast cells showed few morphological and transcriptomic changes when cultivated with either micro bubbles or regular bubbles. This experiment was designed to see if changes could be detected in the transcriptome when cells were cultivated on microbubbles and then split into two reactors for the fermentation phase where low levels of oxygen were provided during the fermentation phase using either micro bubbles or regular bubbles
Project description:Microbial fermentation is involved in the processing of a dark tea popular for centuries in Northwest China which has shown many health benefits. This study will examine anti-obesity, hyperlipidemic and hyperglycemic effects of CGMCC No.8730 Eurotium cristatum (EC) fermented dark tea (8730DT).