Filamentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its effects on industrial strains fermentative capacity: physiological genetic aspects

• Grant number: 05/03500-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Technical Training Program - Technical Training
• Start date: December 01, 2005
• End date: November 30, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Sandra Regina Ceccato Antonini
• Grantee: Emanuele Paiva
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Agrárias (CCA). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Araras , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 04/06669-0 - Filamentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its effects on industrial strains fermentative capacity: physiological genetic aspects, AP.R

Abstract

The yeast S. cerevisiae is dimorphic, that is, is able to grow either in unicellular as filamentous form. A variety of conditions promote pseudohyphal growth, as nitrogen and carbon starvation, or other stressful situations. As S. cerevisiae an important industrial yeast (ethanol production), this project aims to evaluate the filamentation induced by carbon and nitrogen starvation and higher alcohols in industrial yeast strains, which are conditions likely to occur during the fermentative process; to evaluate if in industrial conditions, these yeasts present filamentous growth, analysing the action of sorbitol as filamentation inhibitor and the chitinase activity; to perform gene deletion in these yeastss (MPK1, SWE1, PHO85 and SIC1), verifying the influence of these gene inactivation over the fermentative performance of these yeasts.