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…