Project description:High-level production of pharmaceutical proteins in industrial microorganism is often limited due to the increased cellular stress from misfolded proteins or protein aggregates. Here, we explore the feasibility of applying a yeast Alzheimer’s disease (AD) model with accumulation of amyloid-β peptides (Aβ42), which presents similar phenotypes of cellular stress. We utilize the suppressors of Aβ42 cytotoxicity as potential metabolic engineering targets to improve industrial protein production. The transcriptomics analyses provide new insights towards developing synthetic yeast cell factories for biosynthesis of valuable pharmaceutical proteins.
Project description:Erythromycin is a medically important antibiotic, biosynthesized by the actinomycete Saccharopolyspora erythraea. We used transcriptomic approach to compare whole genome expression in erythromycin high-producing strain, compared to the wild type S. erythraea strain in four stages of fermentation. 2 strains (3 individual fermentations each), 4 time points --> 24 samples (2 exluded from anaysis, 22 remaining); one color design
Project description:Creating Saccharomyces yeasts capable of efficient fermentation of pentoses such as xylose remains a key challenge in the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. Metabolic engineering of industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains has yielded xylose-fermenting strains, but these strains have not yet achieved industrial viability due largely to xylose fermentation being prohibitively slower than that of glucose. Recently, it has been shown that naturally occurring xylose-utilizing Saccharomyces species exist. Uncovering the genetic architecture of such strains will shed further light on xylose metabolism, suggesting additional engineering approaches or possibly even the development of xylose-fermenting yeasts that are not genetically modified. We previously identified a hybrid yeast strain, the genome of which is largely Saccharomyces uvarum, which has the ability to grow on xylose as the sole carbon source. Despite the sterility of this hybrid strain, we were able to develop novel methods to genetically characterize its xylose utilization phenotype, using bulk segregant analysis in conjunction with high-throughput sequencing. We found that its growth in xylose is governed by at least two genetic loci: one of the loci maps to a known xylose-pathway gene, a novel allele of the aldo-keto reductase gene GRE3, while a second locus maps to an allele of APJ1, a chaperonin gene not previously connected to xylose metabolism. Our work demonstrates that the power of sequencing combined with bulk segregant analysis can also be applied to a non-genetically-tractable hybrid strain that contains a complex, polygenic trait, and it identifies new avenues for metabolic engineering as well as for construction of non-genetically modified xylose-fermenting strains.
Project description:The selection of bioengineering platform strains and engineering strategies to improve the stress resistance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae remains a pressing need in bio-based chemical production. Thus, a systematic effort to exploit the genotypic and phenotypic diversity to boost yeast’s industrial value is still urgently needed. Here, we analyzed 5400 growth curves obtained from 36 S. cerevisiae strains and comprehensively profiled their resistances against 13 industrially relevant stresses. We observed that bioethanol and brewing strains exhibit higher resistance against acidic conditions, however, plant isolates tend to have wider range of resistance, which may be associated with their metabolome and fluxome signatures in TCA cycle and fatty acid metabolism. By deep genomic sequencing we found that industrial strains have more genomic duplications especially affecting transcription factors, presenting disparate evolutionary paths in comparison to the environmental strains which have more InDels, gene deletions and strain-specific genes. Genome-wide association studies coupled with protein-protein interaction networks uncovered novel genetic determinants of stress resistances. These resistance-related engineering targets and strain rankings provide a valuable source for engineering significantly improved industrial platform strains.</br></br> This metabolomic study of 36 yeast strains measured intra- and extracellular metabolome under standard glucose medium, profiled by GS-MS. This is part of a multi-omic study on yeast strain collection.
Project description:Our study involves a transcriptomic approach to the analysis of industrial yeast metabolism. Historically, among the hundreds of yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has played an important role in scientific investigations and industrial applications, and it is universally acknowledged as one of the model systems for eukaryotic organisms. Yeast is also an important component of the wine fermentation process and determines various attributes of the final product. Our research takes a holistic approach to the improvement of industrial yeast strains by integrating large data sets from various yeast strains during fermentation. This means that analysis can be done in such a way as to co-evaluate several parameters simultaneously to identify points of interest and target genes for metabolic engineering. Eventually we hope to construct an accurate information matrix and a more complete cellular map for the fermenting yeast. This will enable accurate model-building for industrial yeast and facilitated the design of intelligent yeast improvement strategies which can be applied via traditional avenues of molecular biology.
Project description:Organoid technology provides a revolutionary paradigm towards therapy, yet to be applied in humans mainly because of the reproducibility and scalability challenges. Here, we overcome these limitations by evolving scalable organ bud production platform entirely from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). By conducting massive ‘reverse’ screen experiments, we identified effective triple progenitor populations for generating liver buds in a highly reproducible manner: hepatic endoderm, endothelial and septum mesenchyme progenitors. Furthermore, we achieved human scalability by developing an omni-well-array culture platform for mass-producing homogenous and miniaturized liver buds on a clinically relevant large scale (>108-cell scale). Vascularized and functional liver tissues generated entirely from iPSC significantly improved subsequent hepatic functionalization potentiated by stage-matched developmental progenitor interactions, enabling functional rescue against acute liver failure via transplantation. Overall, our study provides a stringent manufacture platform for multi-cellular organoid supply, thus facilitating clinical and pharmaceutical applications especially for the treatment of liver diseases through multi-industrial collaborations.
Project description:Organoid technology provides a revolutionary paradigm towards therapy, yet to be applied in humans mainly because of the reproducibility and scalability challenges. Here, we overcome these limitations by evolving scalable organ bud production platform entirely from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). By conducting massive ‘reverse’ screen experiments, we identified effective triple progenitor populations for generating liver buds in a highly reproducible manner: hepatic endoderm, endothelial and septum mesenchyme progenitors. Furthermore, we achieved human scalability by developing an omni-well-array culture platform for mass-producing homogenous and miniaturized liver buds on a clinically relevant large scale (>108-cell scale). Vascularized and functional liver tissues generated entirely from iPSC significantly improved subsequent hepatic functionalization potentiated by stage-matched developmental progenitor interactions, enabling functional rescue against acute liver failure via transplantation. Overall, our study provides a stringent manufacture platform for multi-cellular organoid supply, thus facilitating clinical and pharmaceutical applications especially for the treatment of liver diseases through multi-industrial collaborations.
Project description:Erythromycin is a medically important antibiotic, biosynthesized by the actinomycete Saccharopolyspora erythraea. We used transcriptomic approach to compare whole genome expression in erythromycin high-producing strain, compared to the wild type S. erythraea strain in four stages of fermentation.