AUTHOR=Boonekamp Francine J. , Dashko Sofia , van den Broek Marcel , Gehrmann Thies , Daran Jean-Marc , Daran-Lapujade Pascale 

TITLE=The Genetic Makeup and Expression of the Glycolytic and Fermentative Pathways Are Highly Conserved Within the Saccharomyces Genus

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2018.00504

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2018.00504

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>The ability of the yeast <italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic> to convert glucose, even in the presence of oxygen, via glycolysis and the fermentative pathway to ethanol has played an important role in its domestication. Despite the extensive knowledge on these pathways in <italic>S. cerevisiae</italic>, relatively little is known about their genetic makeup in other industrially relevant <italic>Saccharomyces</italic> yeast species. In this study we explore the diversity of the glycolytic and fermentative pathways within the <italic>Saccharomyces</italic> genus using <italic>S. cerevisiae</italic>, <italic>Saccharomyces kudriavzevii</italic>, and <italic>Saccharomyces eubayanus</italic> as paradigms. Sequencing data revealed a highly conserved genetic makeup of the glycolytic and fermentative pathways in the three species in terms of number of paralogous genes. Although promoter regions were less conserved between the three species as compared to coding sequences, binding sites for Rap1, Gcr1 and Abf1, main transcriptional regulators of glycolytic and fermentative genes, were highly conserved. Transcriptome profiling of these three strains grown in aerobic batch cultivation in chemically defined medium with glucose as carbon source, revealed a remarkably similar expression of the glycolytic and fermentative genes across species, and the conserved classification of genes into major and minor paralogs. Furthermore, transplantation of the promoters of major paralogs of <italic>S. kudriavzevii</italic> and <italic>S. eubayanus</italic> into <italic>S. cerevisiae</italic> demonstrated not only the transferability of these promoters, but also the similarity of their strength and response to various environmental stimuli. The relatively low homology of <italic>S. kudriavzevii</italic> and <italic>S. eubayanus</italic> promoters to their <italic>S. cerevisiae</italic> relatives makes them very attractive alternatives for strain construction in <italic>S. cerevisiae</italic>, thereby expanding the <italic>S. cerevisiae</italic> molecular toolbox.</p>