Impact of Hydrogen Peroxide on Protein Synthesis in Yeast.
This article belongs to the Special Issue Thiol-Based Redox Regulation of Cellular and Organismal Function.
Sch 9p kinase and the Gcn4p transcription factor regulate glycerol production during winemaking
Grape juice fermentation is a harsh environment with many stressful conditions, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae adapts its metabolism in response to those environmental challenges. Many nutrient-sensing pathways control this feature. The Tor/Sch9p pathway promotes growth and protein synthesis when nutrients are plenty, while the transcription factor Gcn4p is required for the activation of amino acid biosynthetic pathways. We previously showed that Sch9p impact on longevity depends on the nitrogen/carbon ratio. When nitrogen is limiting, SCH9 deletion shortens chronological life span, which is the case under winemaking conditions. Its deletion also increases glycerol during fermentation, so the…
Yeast Life Span and its Impact on Food Fermentations
Yeasts are very important microorganisms for food production. The high fermentative capacity, mainly of the species of the genus Saccharomyces, is a key factor for their biotechnological use, particularly to produce alcoholic beverages. As viability and vitality are essential to ensure their correct performance in industry, this review addresses the main aspects related to the cellular aging of these fungi as their senescence impacts their proper functioning. Laboratory strains of S. cerevisiae have proven a very successful model for elucidating the molecular mechanisms that control life span. Those mechanisms are shared by all eukaryotic cells. S. cerevisiae has two models of aging, replic…
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cytosolic Thioredoxins Control Glycolysis, Lipid Metabolism, and Protein Biosynthesis under Wine-Making Conditions.
Thioredoxins are small proteins that regulate the cellular redox state, prevent oxidative damage, and play an active role in cell repair. Oxidative stress has proven to be of much relevance in biotechnological processes when the metabolism of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is mainly respiratory. During wine yeast starter production, active dry yeast cytosolic thioredoxin Trx2p is a key player in protecting metabolic enzymes from being oxidized by carbonylation. Less is known about the role of redox control during grape juice fermentation. A mutant strain that lacked both cytosolic thioredoxins, Trx1p and Trx2p, was tested for grape juice fermentation. Its growth and sugar consumption were greatly…
Yeast thioredoxin reductase Trr1p controls TORC1-regulated processes
The thioredoxin system plays a predominant role in the control of cellular redox status. Thioredoxin reductase fuels the system with reducing power in the form of NADPH. The TORC1 complex promotes growth and protein synthesis when nutrients, particularly amino acids, are abundant. It also represses catabolic processes, like autophagy, which are activated during starvation. We analyzed the impact of yeast cytosolic thioredoxin reductase TRR1 deletion under different environmental conditions. It shortens chronological life span and reduces growth in grape juice fermentation. TRR1 deletion has a global impact on metabolism during fermentation. As expected, it reduces oxidative stress tolerance…
Herbicide glufosinate inhibits yeast growth and extends longevity during wine fermentation.
Glufosinate ammonium (GA) is a widely used herbicide that inhibits glutamine synthetase. This inhibition leads to internal amino acid starvation which, in turn, causes the activation of different nutrient sensing pathways. GA also inhibits the enzyme of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae in such a way that, although it is not used as a fungicide, it may alter yeast performance in industrial processes like winemaking. We describe herein how GA indeed inhibits the yeast growth of a wine strain during the fermentation of grape juice. In turn, GA extends longevity in a variety of growth media. The biochemical analysis indicates that GA partially inhibits the nutrient sensing TORC1 pathway, whic…
The Yeast eIF2 Kinase Gcn2 Facilitates H 2 O 2 -Mediated Feedback Inhibition of Both Protein Synthesis and Endoplasmic Reticulum Oxidative Folding during Recombinant Protein Production
Recombinant protein production is a known source of oxidative stress. However, knowledge of which reactive oxygen species are involved or the specific growth phase in which stress occurs remains lacking. Using modern, hypersensitive genetic H2O2-specific probes, microcultivation, and continuous measurements in batch culture, we observed H2O2 accumulation during and following the diauxic shift in engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae, correlating with peak α-amylase production. In agreement with previous studies supporting a role of the translation initiation factor kinase Gcn2 in the response to H2O2, we find that Gcn2-dependent phosphorylation of eIF2α increases alongside translational atten…
Interplay among Gcn5, Sch9 and mitochondria during chronological aging of wine yeast is dependent on growth conditions.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae chronological life span (CLS) is determined by a wide variety of environmental and genetic factors. Nutrient limitation without malnutrition, i.e. dietary restriction, expands CLS through the control of nutrient signaling pathways, of which TOR/Sch9 has proven to be the most relevant, particularly under nitrogen deprivation. The use of prototrophic wine yeast allows a better understanding of the role of nitrogen in longevity in natural and more demanding environments, such as grape juice fermentation. We previously showed that acetyltransferase Gcn5, a member of the SAGA complex, has opposite effects on CLS under laboratory and winemaking conditions, and is detrimen…
Wine yeast peroxiredoxin TSA1 plays a role in growth, stress response and trehalose metabolism in biomass propagation
This article belongs to the Special Issue Wine Yeast 1.0.
Mitochondria inheritance is a key factor for tolerance to dehydration in wine yeast production
UNLABELLED Mitochondria are the cell's powerhouse when organisms are grown in the presence of oxygen. They are also the source of reactive oxygen species that cause damage to the biochemical components of the cell and lead to cellular ageing and death. Under winemaking conditions, Saccharomyces yeasts exclusively have a fermentative metabolism due to the high sugar content of grape must. However, their production as an active dry yeast (ADY) form required aerobic propagation and a dehydration process. In these industrial steps, oxidative stress is particularly harmful for the cell. In this work, we analysed the impact of the mitochondrial genome on oxidative stress response, longevity and d…