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Transcriptome analysis of acetic-acid-treated yeast cells identifies a large set of genes whose overexpression or deletion enhances acetic acid tolerance

  • Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics
  • Published:
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Acetic acid inhibits the metabolic activities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Therefore, a better understanding of how S. cerevisiae cells acquire the tolerance to acetic acid is of importance to develop robust yeast strains to be used in industry. To do this, we examined the transcriptional changes that occur at 12 h post-exposure to acetic acid, revealing that 56 and 58 genes were upregulated and downregulated, respectively. Functional categorization of them revealed that 22 protein synthesis genes and 14 stress response genes constituted the largest portion of the upregulated and downregulated genes, respectively. To evaluate the association of the regulated genes with acetic acid tolerance, 3 upregulated genes (DBP2, ASC1, and GND1) were selected among 34 non-protein synthesis genes, and 54 viable mutants individually deleted for the downregulated genes were retrieved from the non-essential haploid deletion library. Strains overexpressing ASC1 and GND1 displayed enhanced tolerance to acetic acid, whereas a strain overexpressing DBP2 was sensitive. Fifty of 54 deletion mutants displayed enhanced acetic acid tolerance. Three chosen deletion mutants (hsps82Δ, ato2Δ, and ssa3Δ) were also tolerant to benzoic acid but not propionic and sorbic acids. Moreover, all those five (two overexpressing and three deleted) strains were more efficient in proton efflux and lower in membrane permeability and internal hydrogen peroxide content than controls. Individually or in combination, those physiological changes are likely to contribute at least in part to enhanced acetic acid tolerance. Overall, information of our transcriptional profile was very useful to identify molecular factors associated with acetic acid tolerance.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Eunjung Kim for support with plasmid and strain construction and Young Lee for critical reading of the manuscript. This study was partly supported by the BK21 Plus Program (Creative Academy of Ecoscience, 31Z20130012990) funded by the Ministry of Education and National Research Foundation of Korea.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Life and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Republic of Korea

    Yeji Lee, Olviyani Nasution, Eunyong Choi & Wonja Choi

  2. Microbial Resources Research Center, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Republic of Korea

    Wonja Choi

  3. School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul, 136-713, Republic of Korea

    In-Geol Choi

  4. Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Ajou University, Suwon, 442-749, Republic of Korea

    Wankee Kim

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  1. Yeji Lee
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  2. Olviyani Nasution
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  4. In-Geol Choi
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  5. Wankee Kim
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Correspondence to Wankee Kim or Wonja Choi.

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Lee, Y., Nasution, O., Choi, E. et al. Transcriptome analysis of acetic-acid-treated yeast cells identifies a large set of genes whose overexpression or deletion enhances acetic acid tolerance. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 6391–6403 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6706-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6706-y

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