PgmNr Y3131: Mining Saccharomyces diversity and experimental evolution for cellulosic biofuel production.

Authors:
D. Peris Navarro 1 ; R. V. Moriarty 1 ; W. G. Alexander 1 ; K. Sylvester 1 ; M. Sardi 1 ; D. Libkind 2 ; P. Gonçalves 3 ; J. P. Sampaio 3 ; Q. M. Wang 1,4 ; F. Y. Bai 4 ; J. B. Leducq 5 ; C. Landry 5 ; K. Hyma 6 ; J. Fay 6 ; T. K. Sato 1 ; C. T. Hittinger 1


Institutes
1) University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; 2) CONICET-UNComahue, Bariloche, Argentina; 3) Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal; 4) Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; 5) Université Laval, Québec, Canada; 6) Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.


Keyword: Evolution/Comparative Genomics

Abstract:

In the last decade, the application of new molecular techniques has helped to identify Saccharomyces species and unravel their diversity. Indeed we present a poster related to wild and industrial dynamics of S. eubayanus lineage (see Langdon Q.). Mining nucleotide variation and the translated effect on different levels of stress tolerance, sugar consumption rates, or compound production, might be the first step to unravel interesting industrial traits from strains. Here, we screen 510 Saccharomyces strains, exploring diversity levels on par with the diversity between human and birds, in AFEX-Corn Stover Hydrolysate (ACSH) and report the performance of the best candidates during microaerobic fermentations in ACSH, YPDX and YPDX + Feruloyl Amide. Our results show a potential application for lineages such as S. paradoxus and S. mikatae which show tolerance to ACSH conditions, and S. uvarum for their xylose consumption rates. In addition, we mimic the process of brewing hybrid domestication in this biofuel media. We studied the performance of 8 artificial hybrids and compared them to their parents. We also subjected the hybrids to experimental evolution during microaerobic fermentations in ACSH for 50 generations. We observed a great potential for hybridization, and developed a new system for generating efficiently hybrids, called HyPr (Hybrid Production). Now, to explore more diversity we are generating new hybrids with chassis strains and selected Saccharomyces lineages; together with experimental evolution and whole genome sequencing, we expect to unravel the genetic components underlying interesting traits, which could be integrated in artificial gene networks in chassis strains to improve their performance in industrial conditions.