0000000000469791
AUTHOR
Sylvie Dequin
Membre du comité d'organisation scientifique
National audience
Evolutionary advantage conferred by an eukaryote-to-eukaryote gene transfer event in wine yeasts
Although an increasing number of horizontal gene transfers have been reported in eukaryotes, experimental evidence for their adaptive value is lacking. Here, we report the recent transfer of a 158-kb genomic region between Torulaspora microellipsoides and Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeasts or closely related strains. This genomic region has undergone several rearrangements in S. cerevisiae strains, including gene loss and gene conversion between two tandemly duplicated FOT genes encoding oligopeptide transporters. We show that FOT genes confer a strong competitive advantage during grape must fermentation by increasing the number and diversity of oligopeptides that yeast can utilize as a s…
Engineering a Saccharomyces cerevisiae Wine Yeast That Exhibits Reduced Ethanol Production during Fermentation under Controlled Microoxygenation Conditions
ABSTRACTWe recently showed that expressing an H2O-NADH oxidase inSaccharomyces cerevisiaedrastically reduces the intracellular NADH concentration and substantially alters the distribution of metabolic fluxes in the cell. Although the engineered strain produces a reduced amount of ethanol, a high level of acetaldehyde accumulates early in the process (1 g/liter), impairing growth and fermentation performance. To overcome these undesirable effects, we carried out a comprehensive analysis of the impact of oxygen on the metabolic network of the same NADH oxidase-expressing strain. While reducing the oxygen transfer rate led to a gradual recovery of the growth and fermentation performance, its i…