Improvement of Saccharomyces yeast strains used in brewing, wine making and baking.

Yeast was the first microorganism domesticated by mankind. Indeed, the production of bread and alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine dates from antiquity, even though the fact that the origin of alcoholic fermentation is a microorganism was not known until the nineteenth century. The use of starter cultures in yeast industries became a common practice after methods for the isolation of pure yeast strains were developed. Moreover, effort has been undertaken to improve these strains, first by classical genetic methods and later by genetic engineering. In general, yeast strain development has aimed at improving the velocity and efficiency of the respective production process and the quality of the final products. This review highlights the achievements in genetic engineering of Saccharomyces yeast strains applied in food and beverage industry.

The signal peptide of the rat corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1 promotes receptor expression but is not essential for establishing a functional receptor.

Approximately 5-10% of the GPCRs (G-protein-coupled receptors) contain N-terminal signal peptides that are cleaved off during receptor insertion into the ER (endoplasmic reticulum) membrane by the signal peptidases of the ER. The reason as to why only a subset of GPCRs requires these additional signal peptides is not known. We have recently shown that the signal peptide of the human ET(B)-R (endothelin B receptor) does not influence receptor expression but is necessary for the translocation of the receptor's N-tail across the ER membrane and thus for the establishment of a functional receptor [Köchl, Alken, Rutz, Krause, Oksche, Rosenthal and Schülein (2002) J. Biol. Chem. 277, 16131-16138]. In the present study, we show that the signal peptide of the rat CRF-R1 (corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1) has a different function: a mutant of the CRF-R1 lacking the signal peptide was functional and displayed wild-type properties with respect to ligand binding and activation of adenylate cyclase. However, immunoblot analysis and confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed that the mutant receptor was expressed at 10-fold lower levels than the wild-type receptor. Northern-blot and in vitro transcription translation analyses precluded the possibility that the reduced receptor expression is due to decreased transcription or translation levels. Thus the signal peptide of the CRF-R1 promotes an early step of receptor biogenesis, such as targeting of the nascent chain to the ER membrane and/or the gating of the protein-conducting translocon of the ER membrane.

Disease-causing V(2) vasopressin receptors are retained in different compartments of the early secretory pathway.

The G protein-coupled V(2) vasopressin receptor is crucially involved in water reabsorption in the renal collecting duct. Mutations in the human V(2) vasopressin receptor gene cause nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. Many of the disease-causing mutants are retained intracellularly by the quality control system of the early secretory pathway. It was previously thought that quality control system is restricted to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Here, we have examined the retention mechanisms of eight V(2) vasopressin receptor mutants. We show that mutants L62P, DeltaL62-R64 and S167L are trapped exclusively in the ER. In contrast, mutants R143P, Y205C, InsQ292, V226E and R337X reach the ER/Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC) and are rerouted to the ER. The ability of the mutant receptors to reach the ERGIC is independent of their expression levels. Instead, it is determined by their folding state. Mutant receptors in the ERGIC may be sorted into retrograde transport vesicles by an interaction of an RXR motif in the third intracellular loop with the coatomer complex I. Our data show that disease-causing mutants of a particular membrane protein may be retained in different compartments of the early secretory pathway and that the folding states of the proteins determine their retention mechanism.

Increasing sulphite formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by overexpression of MET14 and SSU1.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae produces sulphite as an intermediate product during the assimilatory reduction of sulphate to sulphide. Three genes, MET3, MET14 and MET16, are essential for this reduction. We investigated the level of transcription of these genes in strains of S. cerevisiae with high, medium and low sulphite formation. The level of MET14- and MET16-mRNA varied with sulphite production, whereas the level of MET3-mRNA was very weak in almost all strains. We also analysed the effect of overexpression of MET14 and MET16 on sulphite formation. Two strains with low sulphite production were transformed with high-copy plasmids containing either or both MET14 and MET16. The overexpression of these two genes leads to a two- to three-fold sulphite formation. In addition, inactivation of MET10, encoding a subunit of the sulphite reductase, also leads to a distinct increase in sulphite formation; however, the cells became methionine auxotroph. The overexpression of SSU1, a gene encoding a putative sulphite pump, yields a slight increase in sulphite accumulation, whereas overexpression of SSU1, together with MET14, increases sulphite formation up to 10-fold. Furthermore, sulphite formation strongly depends on growth conditions, e.g. yeast transformants growing in wort produce much higher amounts of sulphite when compared to growth in minimal media. The addition of glucose can also increase the sulphite formation in strains overexpressing MET14 and/or SSU1 under oxygen-limiting conditions, while the addition of glucose has no significant effect under aerobic conditions.