Enhanced acetate ester production of Chinese liquor yeast by overexpressing ATF1 through precise and seamless insertion of PGK1 promoter

Increased Acetate Ester Production of Polyploid Industrial Brewer's Yeast Strains via Precise and Seamless "Self-cloning" Integration Strategy

Background

Enhancing the industrial yeast strains ethyl acetate yield through a precise and seamless genetic manipulation strategy without any extraneous DNA sequences is an essential requisite and significant demand.

Objectives

For increasing the ethyl acetate yield of industrial brewer’s yeast strain, all the ATF1 alleles were overexpressed through “self-cloning” integration strategy.

Material and Methods

Escherichia coli strain DH5α was utilized for plasmid construction. ATF1 alleles were overexpressed through a precise and seamless insertion of the PGK1 promoter in industrial brewer’s yeast strain S6. In addition, growth rates, ATF1 mRNA levels, AATase activity, the fermentation performance of the engineered strains, and gas chromatography (GC) analysis was conducted.

Results

The two engineered strains (S6-P-12 and S6-P-30) overexpressed all ATF1 alleles but unaffected normal growth. The ATF1 mRNA levels of the S6-P-12 and S6-P-30 were all 4-fold higher than that of S6. The AATase (Alcohol acetyl transferases, encoded by ATF1 gene) activity of the two engineered strains was all 3-fold higher than that of the parent strain. In the beer fermentation at 10 ℃, the concentrations of ethyl acetate produced by the engineered strains S6-P-12 and S6-P-30 was increased to 23.98 and 24.00 mg L^-1, respectively, about 20.44% and 20.54% higher than that of S6.

Conclusions

These results verify that the ethyl acetate yield could be enhanced by the overexpressed of ATF1 in the polyploid industrial brewer’s yeast strains via “self-cloning” integration strategy. The present study provides a reference for target gene modification in the diploid or polyploid industrial yeast strains.

Engineering the cytosolic NADH availability in lager yeast to improve the aroma profile of beer

OBJECTIVE

To improve the aroma profile of beer by using metabolic engineering to increase the availability of cytosolic NADH in lager yeast.

RESULTS

To alter NADH levels in lager yeast, the native FDH1 (YOR388C) encoding NAD⁺-dependent formate dehydrogenase was overexpressed in the yeast strain M14, yielding strain M-FDH1. This led to a simultaneous increase of NADH availability and NADH/NAD⁺ ratio in the M-FDH1 strain during fermentation. At the end of the main fermentation period, ethanol production by strain M-FDH1 was decreased by 13.2%, while glycerol production was enhanced by 129.4%, compared to the parental strain respectively. The production of esters and fusel alcohols by strains M14 and M-FDH1 was similar. By contrast, strain M-FDH1 generally produced less organic acids and off-flavor components than strain M14, improving the beer aroma.

CONCLUSIONS

Increased NADH availability led to rerouting of the carbon flux toward NADH-consuming pathways and accelerated the NADH-dependent reducing reactions in yeast, greatly impacting the formation of aroma compounds and improving the beer aroma.

Gradual enhancement of ethyl acetate production through promoter engineering in chinese liquor yeast strains

As content and proportion of ethyl acetate is critical to the flavor and quality of beverages, the concise regulation of the ethyl acetate metabolism is a major issue in beverage fermentations. In this study, for ethyl acetate yield regulation, we finely modulated the expression of ATF1 through precise and seamless insertion of serially truncated PGK1 promoter from the 3' end by 100bp steps in the Chinese liquor yeast, CLy12a. The three engineered promoters carrying 100-, 200-, and 300-bp truncations exhibited reduced promoter strength but unaffected growth. These three promoters were integrated into the CLy12a strain, generating strains CLy12a-P-100, CLy12a-P-200, and CLy12a-P-300, respectively. The transcription levels of CLy12a-P-100, CLy12a-P-200, and CLy12a-P-300 were 20%, 17%, and 10% of that of CLy12a-P, respectively. The AATase (alcohol acetyl transferases, encoded by the ATF1 gene) activity of three engineered strains were 36%, 56%, and 62% of that of CLy12a-P. In the liquid fermentation of corn hydrolysate at 30°C, the concentration of ethyl acetate in CLy12a-P-100, CLy12a-P-200, and CLy12a-P-300 were reduced by 28%, 30%, and 42%, respectively, compared to CLy12a-P. These results verifying that the ethyl acetate yield could be gradually enhanced by finely modulating the expression of ATF1. The engineered strain CLy12a-P-200 produced the ethyl acetate concentration with the best sensorial quality compared to the other engineered yeast strains. The method proposed in this work supplies a practical proposal for breeding Chinese liquor yeast strains with finely modulated ethyl acetate yield. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 34:328-336, 2018.

Functional analysis of the global repressor Tup1 for maltose metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: different roles of the functional domains

Background

Tup1 is a general transcriptional repressor of diverse gene families coordinately controlled by glucose repression, mating type, and other mechanisms in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Several functional domains of Tup1 have been identified, each of which has differing effects on transcriptional repression. In this study, we aim to investigate the role of Tup1 and its domains in maltose metabolism of industrial baker’s yeast. To this end, a battery of in-frame truncations in the TUP1 gene coding region were performed in the industrial baker’s yeasts with different genetic background, and the maltose metabolism, leavening ability, MAL gene expression levels, and growth characteristics were investigated.

Results

The results suggest that the TUP1 gene is essential to maltose metabolism in industrial baker’s yeast. Importantly, different domains of Tup1 play different roles in glucose repression and maltose metabolism of industrial baker’s yeast cells. The Ssn6 interaction, N-terminal repression and C-terminal repression domains might play roles in the regulation of MAL transcription by Tup1 for maltose metabolism of baker’s yeast. The WD region lacking the first repeat could influence the regulation of maltose metabolism directly, rather than indirectly through glucose repression.

Conclusions

These findings lay a foundation for the optimization of industrial baker’s yeast strains for accelerated maltose metabolism and facilitate future research on glucose repression in other sugar metabolism.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-017-0806-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Reducing diacetyl production of wine by overexpressing BDH1 and BDH2 in Saccharomyces uvarum

As a byproduct of yeast valine metabolism during fermentation, diacetyl can produce a buttery aroma in wine. However, high diacetyl concentrations generate an aromatic off-flavor and poor quality in wine. 2,3-Butanediol dehydrogenase encoded by BDH1 can catalyze the two reactions of acetoin from diacetyl and 2,3-butanediol from acetoin. BDH2 is a gene adjacent to BDH1, and these genes are regulated reciprocally. In this study, BDH1 and BDH2 were overexpressed in Saccharomyces uvarum to reduce the diacetyl production of wine either individually or in combination. Compared with those in the host strain WY1, the diacetyl concentrations in the recombinant strains WY1-1 with overexpressed BDH1, WY1-2 with overexpressed BDH2 alone, and WY1-12 with co-overexpressed BDH1 and BDH2 were decreased by 39.87, 33.42, and 46.71%, respectively. BDH2 was only responsible for converting diacetyl into acetoin, but not for the metabolic pathway of acetoin to 2,3-butanediol in S. uvarum. This study provided valuable insights into diacetyl reduction in wine.