Project description:Biorefining of renewable feedstocks is one of the most promising routes to replace fossil-based products. Since many common fermentation hosts, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are naturally unable to convert many component plant cell wall polysaccharides, the identification of organisms with broad catabolism capabilities represents an opportunity to expand the range of substrates used in fermentation biorefinery approaches. The red basidiomycete yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides is a promising and robust host for lipid and terpene derived chemicals. Previous studies demonstrated assimilation of a range of substrates, from C5/C6-sugars to aromatic molecules similar to lignin monomers. In the current study, we analyzed R. toruloides potential to assimilate Dgalacturonic acid, a major sugar in many pectin-rich agricultural waste streams, including sugar beet pulp and citrus peels. D-galacturonic acid is not a preferred substrate for many fungi, but its metabolism was found to be on par with D-glucose and D-xylose in R. toruloides. A genome-wide analysis by combined RNAseq/RB-TDNAseq revealed those genes with high relevance for fitness on D-galacturonic acid. While R. toruloides was found to utilize the same non-phosphorylative catabolic pathway known from ascomycetes, the maximal velocities of several enzymes exceeded those previously reported. In addition, an efficient downstream glycerol catabolism and a novel transcription factor were found to be important for D-galacturonic acid utilization. These results set the basis for use of R. toruloides as a potential host for pectin-rich waste conversions and demonstrate its suitability as a model for metabolic studies in basidiomycetes.
Project description:Insufficient biosynthesis efficiency can be a major obstacle to engineer oleaginous yeasts to overproduce very long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs) during the lipogenic phase. Taking nervonic acid (NA, C24:1) as an example, we overcame the bottleneck to overproduce NA in engineered Rhodosporidium toruloides by improving the biosynthesis of VLCFAs during the lipogenic phase. First, evaluating the catalytic preferences of three plant-derived ketoacyl-CoA synthases rationally guided reconstructing efficient NA biosynthetic pathway in R. toruloides. More importantly, a genome-wide transcriptional analysis endowed clues to strengthen the fatty acid elongation (FAE) module and identify/use lipogenic phase-activated promoter, collectively addressing the stagnation of NA accumulation during the lipogenic phase. The best-designed strain exhibited a high NA content (major component in total fatty acid [TFA], 46.3%) and produced a titer of 44.2 g/L in a 5 L bioreactor. The strategy developed here provides an engineering framework to establish the microbial process of producing valuable VLCFAs in oleaginous yeasts.
Project description:Aim: Analyse inhibitory effects of galacturonic acid, an important constituent of plant biomass hydrolysates, on growing and starving cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae CEN.PK113-7D. Method & Results: Biomass yields in aerobic and anaerobic glucose-limited chemostat cultures (pH 3.5) were reduced by 25 and 10%, respectively, upon addition of 10 g∙l-1 galacturonic acid. Genes previously reported to show a transcriptional response to other organic acids were overrepresented in a set of galacturonic-acid responsive genes identified by microarray analysis. These results suggested that galacturonic acid causes weak-acid uncoupling of the yeast plasma membrane pH gradient. Consistent with this hypothesis, galacturonate-accelerated loss of viability in starving cell suspensions was strongly pH dependent. Loss of viability was much slower in a strain in which all HXT (hexose transporter) genes were deleted. Moreover, deletion of HXT genes alleviated growth inhibition on ethanol observed at galacturonic acid concentrations of 10 g∙l-1 and above. Conclusions: At low pH, galacturonic acid negatively affects the physiology of S. cerevisiae. Reduced sensitivity of hexose-transporter mutants indicated that one or more HXT transporters are involved in transport of galacturonic acid. Significance and Impact: This study shows that galacturonic acid toxicity should be taken into account in process development for yeast-based fermentative conversion of pectin-rich feedstocks such as sugar beet pulp and citrus peel. Involvement of hexose transporters in galacturonic acid toxicity provides leads for improving tolerance. To investigate the impact of galacturonic acid on S. cerevisiae, a DNA microarray-based transcriptome analysis was performed on aerobic, glucose-limited chemostat cultures grown in the presence and absence of 10 g∙l-1 galacturonic acid at pH3.5.
Project description:Aim: Analyse inhibitory effects of galacturonic acid, an important constituent of plant biomass hydrolysates, on growing and starving cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae CEN.PK113-7D. Method & Results: Biomass yields in aerobic and anaerobic glucose-limited chemostat cultures (pH 3.5) were reduced by 25 and 10%, respectively, upon addition of 10 g∙l-1 galacturonic acid. Genes previously reported to show a transcriptional response to other organic acids were overrepresented in a set of galacturonic-acid responsive genes identified by microarray analysis. These results suggested that galacturonic acid causes weak-acid uncoupling of the yeast plasma membrane pH gradient. Consistent with this hypothesis, galacturonate-accelerated loss of viability in starving cell suspensions was strongly pH dependent. Loss of viability was much slower in a strain in which all HXT (hexose transporter) genes were deleted. Moreover, deletion of HXT genes alleviated growth inhibition on ethanol observed at galacturonic acid concentrations of 10 g∙l-1 and above. Conclusions: At low pH, galacturonic acid negatively affects the physiology of S. cerevisiae. Reduced sensitivity of hexose-transporter mutants indicated that one or more HXT transporters are involved in transport of galacturonic acid. Significance and Impact: This study shows that galacturonic acid toxicity should be taken into account in process development for yeast-based fermentative conversion of pectin-rich feedstocks such as sugar beet pulp and citrus peel. Involvement of hexose transporters in galacturonic acid toxicity provides leads for improving tolerance.
Project description:Background: A key prerequisite for pathway engineering is the development of genetic tools and resources. Rhodosporidium toruloides is emerging as a promising host for the production of bioproducts from lignocellulosic biomass. However, there is a lack of characterized promoters to drive expression of heterologous genes for strain engineering in R. toruloides. Results: The resulting data describes a set of native R. toruloides promoters, characterized over time in four media commonly used for this yeast. The promoter sequences were sorted using transcriptional analysis and several of them were found to drive expression bidirectionally. We measured promoter expression by flow cytometry using a dual fluorescent reporter system. From these analyses, we found a total of 20 constitutive promoters (12 monodirectional and 8 bidirectional), that are strong, stable, and can reliably be used for genetic manipulation of this emergent host. Conclusions: We are presenting a list of robust constitutive promoters that are native to the emergent bioconversion host R. toruloides which helps to fulfill the lack of existing tools for this yeast and that can be applied in future metabolic engineering studies.
Project description:Rhodosporidium toruloides is a red, basidiomycetes yeast that can accumulate a large amount of lipids and produce carotenoids. To better assess this non-model yeast's metabolic capabilities, we reconstructed a genome-scale model of R. toruloides IFO0880's metabolic network (iRhto1108) accounting for 2204 reactions, 1985 metabolites and 1108 genes. In this work, we integrated and supplemented the current knowledge with in-house generated biomass composition and experimental measurements pertaining to the organism's metabolic capabilities. Predictions of genotype-phenotype relations were improved through manual curation of gene-protein-reaction rules for 543 reactions leading to correct recapitulations of 84.5% of gene essentiality data (sensitivity of 94.3% and specificity of 53.8%). Organism-specific macromolecular composition and ATP maintenance requirements were experimentally measured for two separate growth conditions: (i) carbon and (ii) nitrogen limitations. Overall, iRhto1108 reproduced R. toruloides's utilization capabilities for 18 alternate substrates, matched measured wild-type growth yield, and recapitulated the viability of 772 out of 819 deletion mutants. As a demonstration to the model's fidelity in guiding engineering interventions, the OptForce procedure was applied on iRhto1108 for triacylglycerol overproduction. Suggested interventions recapitulated many of the previous successful implementations of genetic modifications and put forth a few new ones.
Project description:Rhodosporidium toruloides is a red, basidiomycetes yeast that can accumulate a large amount of lipids and produce carotenoids. To better assess this non-model yeast's metabolic capabilities, we reconstructed a genome-scale model of R. toruloides IFO0880's metabolic network (iRhto1108) accounting for 2204 reactions, 1985 metabolites and 1108 genes. In this work, we integrated and supplemented the current knowledge with in-house generated biomass composition and experimental measurements pertaining to the organism's metabolic capabilities. Predictions of genotype-phenotype relations were improved through manual curation of gene-protein-reaction rules for 543 reactions leading to correct recapitulations of 84.5% of gene essentiality data (sensitivity of 94.3% and specificity of 53.8%). Organism-specific macromolecular composition and ATP maintenance requirements were experimentally measured for two separate growth conditions: (i) carbon and (ii) nitrogen limitations. Overall, iRhto1108 reproduced R. toruloides's utilization capabilities for 18 alternate substrates, matched measured wild-type growth yield, and recapitulated the viability of 772 out of 819 deletion mutants. As a demonstration to the model's fidelity in guiding engineering interventions, the OptForce procedure was applied on iRhto1108 for triacylglycerol overproduction. Suggested interventions recapitulated many of the previous successful implementations of genetic modifications and put forth a few new ones.