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Physiological and metabolic diversity in the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus

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Abstract

Kluyveromyces marxianus is homothallic hemiascomycete yeast frequently isolated from dairy environments. It possesses phenotypic traits such as enhanced thermotolerance, inulinase production, and rapid growth rate that distinguish it from its closest relative Kluyveromyces lactis. Certain of these traits, notably fermentation of lactose and inulin to ethanol, make this yeast attractive for industrial production of ethanol from inexpensive substrates. There is relatively little known, however, about the diversity in this species, at the genetic, metabolic or physiological levels. This study compared phenotypic traits of 13 K. marxianus strains sourced from two European Culture Collections. A wide variety of responses to thermo, osmotic, and cell wall stress were observed, with some strains showing multi-stress resistance. These traits generally appeared unlinked indicating that, as with other yeasts, multiple resistance/adaptation pathways are present in K. marxianus. The data indicate that it should be possible to identify the molecular basis of traits to facilitate selection or engineering of strains adapted for industrial environments. The loci responsible for mating were also identified by genome sequencing and PCR analysis. It was found that K. marxianus can exist as stable haploid or diploid cells, opening up additional prospects for future strain engineering.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in parts by grants awarded by the Science Foundation of Ireland (08/RFP/GEN1295; 07/IN1/B911); the Irish Department of Agriculture FIRM programme (06RDC459; 06RDC506) and Enterprise Ireland (IP/2008/0559). We thank Michael McCarthy and Olan Burke, Carbery Group, Ballineen, West Cork for supporting aspects of this research. The technical help of Pat Higgins, Dan Walsh, Paddy Reilly, and Laura Casey is also appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Melanie M. Lane, Niall Burke, Rob Karreman & John P. Morrissey

  2. Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland

    Kenneth H. Wolfe

  3. Microbiology Department, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Conor P. O’Byrne

Authors
  1. Melanie M. Lane
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  2. Niall Burke
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  6. John P. Morrissey
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to John P. Morrissey.

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Supp Fig. 1.Alignment of 26S LSU D1_D2 sequences of strains used in this study.

Sequences of the D1/D2 region of the LSU (26S) rDNA were retrieved from the CBS database for strains CBS 397, CBS 745, CBS 608, NCYC 2791 (CBS 712), NCYC 970 (CBS 2762), NCYC 2597 (CBS 6556) and NCYC 1424 (CBS 5795). The corresponding sequence from strains CBS 7858, NCYC 100, NCYC 111, NCYC 179, NCYC 587 and NCYC 2887 was generated de novo using the NL1 and NL4 primers as sequence of these strains was not available in databases. Reference sequence of type strains of K. marxianus (U94924) and K. lactis (U94922) were obtained from Genbank and used as standards. Sequences were trimmed to similar lengths and aligned using ClustalW on the EBI website (www.ebi.ac.uk). Alignments were displayed using Jalview and assembled to show the complete alignment of this region. The reference sequences show the G/A polymorphism (at position 100 in this alignment) that distinguishes K. lactis and K. marxianus. This alignment demonstrates that all the strains used in this study were correctly classified as K. marxianus isolates. (PPTX 551 kb)

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Lane, M.M., Burke, N., Karreman, R. et al. Physiological and metabolic diversity in the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus . Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 100, 507–519 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-011-9606-x

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