Copper-based grape pest management has impacted wine aroma.

Despite the high energetic cost of the reduction of sulfate to H2S, required for the synthesis of sulfur-containing amino acids, some wine Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains have been reported to produce excessive amounts of H2S during alcoholic fermentation, which is detrimental to wine quality. Surprisingly, in the presence of sulfite, used as a preservative, wine strains produce more H2S than wild (oak) or wine velum (flor) isolates during fermentation. Since copper resistance caused by the amplification of the sulfur rich protein Cup1p is a specific adaptation trait of wine strains, we analyzed the link between copper resistance mechanism, sulfur metabolism and H2S production. We show that a higher content of copper in the must increases the production of H2S, and that SO2 increases the resistance to copper. Using a set of 51 strains we observed a positive and then negative relation between the number of copies of CUP1 and H2S production during fermentation. This complex pattern could be mimicked using a multicopy plasmid carrying CUP1, confirming the relation between copper resistance and H2S production. The massive use of copper for vine sanitary management has led to the selection of resistant strains at the cost of a metabolic tradeoff: the overproduction of H2S, resulting in a decrease in wine quality.

QTL mapping reveals novel genes and mechanisms underlying variations in H2S production during alcoholic fermentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae requirement for reduced sulfur to synthesize methionine and cysteine during alcoholic fermentation, is mainly fulfilled through the sulfur assimilation pathway. Saccharomyces cerevisiae reduces sulfate into sulfur dioxide (SO2) and sulfide (H2S), whose overproduction is a major issue in winemaking, due to its negative impact on wine aroma. The amount of H2S produced is highly strain-specific and also depends on SO2 concentration, often added to grape must. Applying a bulk segregant analysis to a 96-strain-progeny derived from two strains with different abilities to produce H2S, and comparing allelic frequencies along the genome of pools of segregants producing contrasting H2S quantities, we identified two causative regions involved in H2S production in the presence of SO2. A functional genetic analysis allowed the identification of variants in four genes able to impact H2S formation, viz; ZWF1, ZRT2, SNR2, and YLR125W, and involved in functions and pathways not associated with sulfur metabolism until now. These data point out that, in wine fermentation conditions, redox status, and zinc homeostasis are linked to H2S formation while providing new insights into the regulation of H2S production, and a new vision of the interplay between the sulfur assimilation pathway and cell metabolism.

Genomic and Long-Term Transcriptomic Imprints Related to the Daptomycin Mechanism of Action Occurring in Daptomycin- and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Under Daptomycin Exposure.

Daptomycin (DAP) is one of the last-resort treatments for heterogeneous vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (hVISA) and vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA) infections. DAP resistance (DAP-R) is multifactorial and mainly related to cell-envelope modifications caused by single-nucleotide polymorphisms and/or modulation mechanisms of transcription emerging as result of a self-defense process in response to DAP exposure. Nevertheless, the role of these adaptations remains unclear. We aim to investigate the comparative genomics and late post-exponential growth-phase transcriptomics of two DAP-resistant/DAP-susceptible (DAPR/S) methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) clinical strain pairs to focalize the genomic and long-term transcriptomic fingerprinting and adaptations related to the DAP mechanism of action acquired in vivo under DAP pressure using Illumina whole-genome sequencing (WGS), RNA-seq, bioinformatics, and real-time qPCR validation. Comparative genomics revealed that membrane protein and transcriptional regulator coding genes emerged as shared functional coding-gene clusters harboring mutational events related to the DAP-R onset in a strain-dependent manner. Pairwise transcriptomic enrichment analysis highlighted common and strain pair-dependent Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways, whereas DAPR/S double-pair cross-filtering returned 53 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A multifactorial long-term transcriptomic-network characterized DAPR MRSA includes alterations in (i) peptidoglycan biosynthesis, cell division, and cell-membrane (CM) organization genes, as well as a cidB/lytS autolysin genes; (ii) ldh2 involved in fermentative metabolism; (iii) CM-potential perturbation genes; and (iv) oxidative and heat/cold stress response-related genes. Moreover, a D-alanyl-D-alanine decrease in cell-wall muropeptide characterized DAP/glycopeptide cross-reduced susceptibility mechanisms in DAPR MRSA. Our data provide a snapshot of DAPR MRSA genomic and long-term transcriptome signatures related to the DAP mechanism of action (MOA) evidencing that a complex network of genomic changes and transcriptomic adaptations is required to acquire DAP-R.