Natural allelic variations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae impact stuck fermentation due to the combined effect of ethanol and temperature; a QTL-mapping study.

BACKGROUND: Fermentation completion is a major prerequisite in many industrial processes involving the bakery yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Stuck fermentations can be due to the combination of many environmental stresses. Among them, high temperature and ethanol content are particularly deleterious especially in bioethanol and red wine production. Although the genetic causes of temperature and/or ethanol tolerance were widely investigated in laboratory conditions, few studies investigated natural genetic variations related to stuck fermentations in high gravity matrixes. RESULTS: In this study, three QTLs linked to stuck fermentation in winemaking conditions were identified by using a selective genotyping strategy carried out on a backcrossed population. The precision of mapping allows the identification of two causative genes VHS1 and OYE2 characterized by stop-codon insertion. The phenotypic effect of these allelic variations was validated by Reciprocal Hemyzygous Assay in high gravity fermentations (> 240 g/L of sugar) carried out at high temperatures (> 28 °C). Phenotypes impacted were mostly related to the late stage of alcoholic fermentation during the stationary growth phase of yeast. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings illustrate the complex genetic determinism of stuck fermentation and open new avenues for better understanding yeast resistance mechanisms involved in high gravity fermentations.

Many interspecific chromosomal introgressions are highly prevalent in Holarctic Saccharomyces uvarum strains found in human-related fermentations.

In the last two decades, the extensive genome sequencing of strains belonging to the Saccharomyces genus has revealed the complex reticulated evolution of this group. Among the various evolutionary mechanisms described, the introgression of large chromosomal regions resulting from interspecific hybridization has recently shed light on Saccharomyces uvarum species. In this work we provide the de novo assembled genomes of four S. uvarum strains presenting more than 712 kb of introgressed loci inherited from both Saccharomyces eubayanus and Saccharomyces kudriavzevii species. In order to study the prevalence of such introgressions in a large population, we designed multiplexed PCR markers able to survey the inheritance of eight chromosomal regions. Our data confirm that introgressions are widely disseminated in Holarctic S. uvarum populations and are more frequently found in strains isolated from human-related fermentations. According to the origin of the strains (nature or cider- or wine-related processes), some loci are over-represented, suggesting their positive selection by human activity. Except for one locus located on chromosome 7, the introgressions present a low level of heterozygozity similar to that observed for nine neutral markers (microsatellites). Finally, most of the loci tested showed an expected Mendelian segregation after meiosis and can recombine with their chromosomal counterpart in S. uvarum. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comparative genomics of emerging pathogens in the Candida glabrata clade.

BACKGROUND: Candida glabrata follows C. albicans as the second or third most prevalent cause of candidemia worldwide. These two pathogenic yeasts are distantly related, C. glabrata being part of the Nakaseomyces, a group more closely related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although C. glabrata was thought to be the only pathogenic Nakaseomyces, two new pathogens have recently been described within this group: C. nivariensis and C. bracarensis. To gain insight into the genomic changes underlying the emergence of virulence, we sequenced the genomes of these two, and three other non-pathogenic Nakaseomyces, and compared them to other sequenced yeasts. RESULTS: Our results indicate that the two new pathogens are more closely related to the non-pathogenic N. delphensis than to C. glabrata. We uncover duplications and accelerated evolution that specifically affected genes in the lineage preceding the group containing N. delphensis and the three pathogens, which may provide clues to the higher propensity of this group to infect humans. Finally, the number of Epa-like adhesins is specifically enriched in the pathogens, particularly in C. glabrata. CONCLUSIONS: Remarkably, some features thought to be the result of adaptation of C. glabrata to a pathogenic lifestyle, are present throughout the Nakaseomyces, indicating these are rather ancient adaptations to other environments. Phylogeny suggests that human pathogenesis evolved several times, independently within the clade. The expansion of the EPA gene family in pathogens establishes an evolutionary link between adhesion and virulence phenotypes. Our analyses thus shed light onto the relationships between virulence and the recent genomic changes that occurred within the Nakaseomyces. SEQUENCE ACCESSION NUMBERS: Nakaseomyces delphensis: CAPT01000001 to CAPT01000179Candida bracarensis: CAPU01000001 to CAPU01000251Candida nivariensis: CAPV01000001 to CAPV01000123Candida castellii: CAPW01000001 to CAPW01000101Nakaseomyces bacillisporus: CAPX01000001 to CAPX01000186.

Comparative genomics of protoploid Saccharomycetaceae.

Our knowledge of yeast genomes remains largely dominated by the extensive studies on Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the consequences of its ancestral duplication, leaving the evolution of the entire class of hemiascomycetes only partly explored. We concentrate here on five species of Saccharomycetaceae, a large subdivision of hemiascomycetes, that we call "protoploid" because they diverged from the S. cerevisiae lineage prior to its genome duplication. We determined the complete genome sequences of three of these species: Kluyveromyces (Lachancea) thermotolerans and Saccharomyces (Lachancea) kluyveri (two members of the newly described Lachancea clade), and Zygosaccharomyces rouxii. We included in our comparisons the previously available sequences of Kluyveromyces lactis and Ashbya (Eremothecium) gossypii. Despite their broad evolutionary range and significant individual variations in each lineage, the five protoploid Saccharomycetaceae share a core repertoire of approximately 3300 protein families and a high degree of conserved synteny. Synteny blocks were used to define gene orthology and to infer ancestors. Far from representing minimal genomes without redundancy, the five protoploid yeasts contain numerous copies of paralogous genes, either dispersed or in tandem arrays, that, altogether, constitute a third of each genome. Ancient, conserved paralogs as well as novel, lineage-specific paralogs were identified.

Génolevures: protein families and synteny among complete hemiascomycetous yeast proteomes and genomes.

The Génolevures online database (http://cbi.labri.fr/Genolevures/ and http://genolevures.org/) provides exploratory tools and curated data sets relative to nine complete and seven partial genome sequences determined and manually annotated by the Génolevures Consortium, to facilitate comparative genomic studies of Hemiascomycete yeasts. The 2008 update to the Génolevures database provides four new genomes in complete (subtelomere to subtelomere) chromosome sequences, 50,000 protein-coding and tRNA genes, and in silico analyses for each gene element. A key element is a novel classification of conserved multi-species protein families and their use in detecting synteny, gene fusions and other aspects of genome remodeling in evolution. Our purpose is to release high-quality curated data from complete genomes, with a focus on the relations between genes, genomes and proteins.

Genome-wide computational prediction of tandem gene arrays: application in yeasts.

BACKGROUND: This paper describes an efficient in silico method for detecting tandem gene arrays (TGAs) in fully sequenced and compact genomes such as those of prokaryotes or unicellular eukaryotes. The originality of this method lies in the search of protein sequence similarities in the vicinity of each coding sequence, which allows the prediction of tandem duplicated gene copies independently of their functionality. RESULTS: Applied to nine hemiascomycete yeast genomes, this method predicts that 2% of the genes are involved in TGAs and gene relics are present in 11% of TGAs. The frequency of TGAs with degenerated gene copies means that a significant fraction of tandem duplicated genes follows the birth-and-death model of evolution. A comparison of sequence identity distributions between sets of homologous gene pairs shows that the different copies of tandem arrayed paralogs are less divergent than copies of dispersed paralogs in yeast genomes. It suggests that paralogs included in tandem structures are more recent or more subject to the gene conversion mechanism than other paralogs. CONCLUSION: The method reported here is a useful computational tool to provide a database of TGAs composed of functional or nonfunctional gene copies. Such a database has obvious applications in the fields of structural and comparative genomics. Notably, a detailed study of the TGA catalog will make it possible to tackle the fundamental questions of the origin and evolution of tandem gene clusters.

Genome evolution in yeasts.

Identifying the mechanisms of eukaryotic genome evolution by comparative genomics is often complicated by the multiplicity of events that have taken place throughout the history of individual lineages, leaving only distorted and superimposed traces in the genome of each living organism. The hemiascomycete yeasts, with their compact genomes, similar lifestyle and distinct sexual and physiological properties, provide a unique opportunity to explore such mechanisms. We present here the complete, assembled genome sequences of four yeast species, selected to represent a broad evolutionary range within a single eukaryotic phylum, that after analysis proved to be molecularly as diverse as the entire phylum of chordates. A total of approximately 24,200 novel genes were identified, the translation products of which were classified together with Saccharomyces cerevisiae proteins into about 4,700 families, forming the basis for interspecific comparisons. Analysis of chromosome maps and genome redundancies reveal that the different yeast lineages have evolved through a marked interplay between several distinct molecular mechanisms, including tandem gene repeat formation, segmental duplication, a massive genome duplication and extensive gene loss.

Fusion and fission of genes define a metric between fungal genomes.

Gene fusion and fission events are key mechanisms in the evolution of gene architecture, whose effects are visible in protein architecture when they occur in coding sequences. Until now, the detection of fusion and fission events has been performed at the level of protein sequences with a post facto removal of supernumerary links due to paralogy, and often did not include looking for events defined only in single genomes. We propose a method for the detection of these events, defined on groups of paralogs to compensate for the gene redundancy of eukaryotic genomes, and apply it to the proteomes of 12 fungal species. We collected an inventory of 1,680 elementary fusion and fission events. In half the cases, both composite and element genes are found in the same species. Per-species counts of events correlate with the species genome size, suggesting a random mechanism of occurrence. Some biological functions of the genes involved in fusion and fission events are slightly over- or under-represented. As already noted in previous studies, the genes involved in an event tend to belong to the same functional category. We inferred the position of each event in the evolution tree of the 12 fungal species. The event localization counts for all the segments of the tree provide a metric that depicts the "recombinational" phylogeny among fungi. A possible interpretation of this metric as distance in adaptation space is proposed.

Genolevures complete genomes provide data and tools for comparative genomics of hemiascomycetous yeasts.

The Génolevures online database (http://cbi.labri.fr/Genolevures/) provides tools and data relative to 4 complete and 10 partial genome sequences determined and manually annotated by the Génolevures Consortium, to facilitate comparative genomic studies of hemiascomycetous yeasts. With their relatively small and compact genomes, yeasts offer a unique opportunity for exploring eukaryotic genome evolution. The new version of the Génolevures database provides truly complete (subtelomere to subtelomere) chromosome sequences, 25 000 protein-coding and tRNA genes, and in silico analyses for each gene element. A new feature of the database is a novel collection of conserved multi-species protein families and their mapping to metabolic pathways, coupled with an advanced search feature. Data are presented with a focus on relations between genes and genomes: conservation of genes and gene families, speciation, chromosomal reorganization and synteny. The Génolevures site includes an area for specific studies by members of its international community.

Genome Sequence of the Yeast Clavispora lusitaniae Type Strain CBS 6936.

Clavispora lusitaniae, an environmental saprophytic yeast belonging to the CTG clade of Candida, can behave occasionally as an opportunistic pathogen in humans. We report here the genome sequence of the type strain CBS 6936. Comparison with sequences of strain ATCC 42720 indicates conservation of chromosomal structure but significant nucleotide divergence.

Génolevures: comparative genomics and molecular evolution of hemiascomycetous yeasts.

The Génolevures online database (http://cbi.labri.fr/Genolevures/) provides data and tools to facilitate comparative genomic studies on hemiascomycetous yeasts. Now, four complete genome sequences recently determined (Candida glabrata, Kluyveromyces lactis, Debaryomyces hansenii, Yarrowia lipolytica) have been added to the partial sequences of 13 species previously analysed by a random approach. The database also includes the reference genome Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Data are presented with a focus on relations between genes and genomes: conservation of genes and gene families, speciation, chromosomal reorganization and synteny. The Génolevures site includes a community area for specific studies by members of the international community.

HIV-1 integrase interacts with yeast microtubule-associated proteins.

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrase (IN) mediates the insertion of viral DNA into the human genome. In addition to IN, cellular and viral proteins are associated to proviral DNA in the so-called preintegration complex (PIC). We previously reported that the expression of HIV-1 IN in yeast leads to the emergence of a lethal phenotype. This effect may be linked to the IN activity on infected human cells where integration requires the cleavage of genomic DNA. To isolate and characterize potential cellular partners of HIV-1 IN, we used it as a bait in a two-hybrid system with a yeast genomic library. IN interacted with proteins belonging to the microtubule network, or involved in the protein synthesis apparatus. We focused our interest on one of the selected inserts, L2, which corresponds to the C-end half of the yeast STU2p, a microtubule-associated protein (MAP). STU2p is an essential component of the yeast spindle pole body (SPB), which is able to bind microtubules in vitro. After expressing and purifying L2 as a recombinant protein, we showed its binding to IN by ELISA immunodetection. L2 was also able to inhibit IN activity in vitro. In addition, the effect of L2 was tested using the "lethal yeast phenotype". The coexpression of IN and the L2 peptide abolished the lethal phenotype, thus showing important in vivo interactions between IN and L2. The identification of components of the microtubule network associated with IN suggest a role of this complex in the transport of HIV-1 IN present in the PIC to the nucleus, as already described for other human viruses.

QTL dissection of Lag phase in wine fermentation reveals a new translocation responsible for Saccharomyces cerevisiae adaptation to sulfite.

Quantitative genetics and QTL mapping are efficient strategies for deciphering the genetic polymorphisms that explain the phenotypic differences of individuals within the same species. Since a decade, this approach has been applied to eukaryotic microbes such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae in order to find natural genetic variations conferring adaptation of individuals to their environment. In this work, a QTL responsible for lag phase duration in the alcoholic fermentation of grape juice was dissected by reciprocal hemizygosity analysis. After invalidating the effect of some candidate genes, a chromosomal translocation affecting the lag phase was brought to light using de novo assembly of parental genomes. This newly described translocation (XV-t-XVI) involves the promoter region of ADH1 and the gene SSU1 and confers an increased expression of the sulfite pump during the first hours of alcoholic fermentation. This translocation constitutes another adaptation route of wine yeast to sulfites in addition to the translocation VIII-t-XVI previously described. A population survey of both translocation forms in a panel of domesticated yeast strains suggests that the translocation XV-t-XVI has been empirically selected by human activity.

Draft Genome Sequence of Rhodosporidium toruloides CECT1137, an Oleaginous Yeast of Biotechnological Interest.

We report the sequencing of the basidiomycetous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides CECT1137. The current assembly comprises 62 scaffolds, for a total size of ca. 20.45 Mbp and a G+C content of ca. 61.9%. The genome annotation predicts 8,206 putative protein-coding genes.

Diversity and variability of NOD-like receptors in fungi.

Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs) are intracellular receptors that control innate immunity and other biotic interactions in animals and plants. NLRs have been characterized in plant and animal lineages, but in fungi, this gene family has not been systematically described. There is however previous indications of the involvement of NLR-like genes in nonself recognition and programmed cell death in fungi. We have analyzed 198 fungal genomes for the presence of NLRs and have annotated a total of 5,616 NLR candidates. We describe their phylogenetic distribution, domain organization, and evolution. Fungal NLRs are characterized by a great diversity of domain organizations, suggesting frequently occurring combinatorial assortments of different effector, NOD and repeat domains. The repeat domains are of the WD, ANK, and TPR type; no LRR motifs were found. As previously documented for WD-repeat domains of fungal NLRs, TPR, and ANK repeats evolve under positive selection and show highly conserved repeats and repeat length polymorphism, suggesting the possibility of concerted evolution of these repeats. We identify novel effector domains not previously found associated with NLRs, whereas others are related to effector domains of plant or animals NLRs. In particular, we show that the HET domain found in fungal NLRs may be related to Toll/interleukin-1 receptor domains found in animal and plant immune receptors. This description of fungal NLR repertoires reveals both similarities and differences with plant and animals NLR collections, highlights the importance of domain reassortment and repeat evolution and provides a novel entry point to explore the evolution of NLRs in eukaryotes.

A Gondwanan imprint on global diversity and domestication of wine and cider yeast Saccharomyces uvarum.

In addition to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the cryotolerant yeast species S. uvarum is also used for wine and cider fermentation but nothing is known about its natural history. Here we use a population genomics approach to investigate its global phylogeography and domestication fingerprints using a collection of isolates obtained from fermented beverages and from natural environments on five continents. South American isolates contain more genetic diversity than that found in the Northern Hemisphere. Moreover, coalescence analyses suggest that a Patagonian sub-population gave rise to the Holarctic population through a recent bottleneck. Holarctic strains display multiple introgressions from other Saccharomyces species, those from S. eubayanus being prevalent in European strains associated with human-driven fermentations. These introgressions are absent in the large majority of wild strains and gene ontology analyses indicate that several gene categories relevant for wine fermentation are overrepresented. Such findings constitute a first indication of domestication in S. uvarum.

The complete genome of Blastobotrys (Arxula) adeninivorans LS3 - a yeast of biotechnological interest.

BACKGROUND: The industrially important yeast Blastobotrys (Arxula) adeninivorans is an asexual hemiascomycete phylogenetically very distant from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Its unusual metabolic flexibility allows it to use a wide range of carbon and nitrogen sources, while being thermotolerant, xerotolerant and osmotolerant. RESULTS: The sequencing of strain LS3 revealed that the nuclear genome of A. adeninivorans is 11.8 Mb long and consists of four chromosomes with regional centromeres. Its closest sequenced relative is Yarrowia lipolytica, although mean conservation of orthologs is low. With 914 introns within 6116 genes, A. adeninivorans is one of the most intron-rich hemiascomycetes sequenced to date. Several large species-specific families appear to result from multiple rounds of segmental duplications of tandem gene arrays, a novel mechanism not yet described in yeasts. An analysis of the genome and its transcriptome revealed enzymes with biotechnological potential, such as two extracellular tannases (Atan1p and Atan2p) of the tannic-acid catabolic route, and a new pathway for the assimilation of n-butanol via butyric aldehyde and butyric acid. CONCLUSIONS: The high-quality genome of this species that diverged early in Saccharomycotina will allow further fundamental studies on comparative genomics, evolution and phylogenetics. Protein components of different pathways for carbon and nitrogen source utilization were identified, which so far has remained unexplored in yeast, offering clues for further biotechnological developments. In the course of identifying alternative microorganisms for biotechnological interest, A. adeninivorans has already proved its strengthened competitiveness as a promising cell factory for many more applications.

The family based variability in protein family expansion.

In this paper we propose an automatic protein family expansion approach for recruitment of new members among the protein-coding genes in newly sequenced genomes. The criteria for adding a new member to a family depends on the structure of each individual family versus being globally uniform. The detection of a threshold in the ROC space of all sorted iterative profile sets defines the alignments selection criteria for each family. Furthermore, the statistical estimation of most-frequent optimal sorting criteria generates the optimal filtering strategy in a learning-parameter set for profile-based homology search.

Pichia sorbitophila, an Interspecies Yeast Hybrid, Reveals Early Steps of Genome Resolution After Polyploidization.

Polyploidization is an important process in the evolution of eukaryotic genomes, but ensuing molecular mechanisms remain to be clarified. Autopolyploidization or whole-genome duplication events frequently are resolved in resulting lineages by the loss of single genes from most duplicated pairs, causing transient gene dosage imbalance and accelerating speciation through meiotic infertility. Allopolyploidization or formation of interspecies hybrids raises the problem of genetic incompatibility (Bateson-Dobzhansky-Muller effect) and may be resolved by the accumulation of mutational changes in resulting lineages. In this article, we show that an osmotolerant yeast species, Pichia sorbitophila, recently isolated in a concentrated sorbitol solution in industry, illustrates this last situation. Its genome is a mosaic of homologous and homeologous chromosomes, or parts thereof, that corresponds to a recently formed hybrid in the process of evolution. The respective parental contributions to this genome were characterized using existing variations in GC content. The genomic changes that occurred during the short period since hybrid formation were identified (e.g., loss of heterozygosity, unilateral loss of rDNA, reciprocal exchange) and distinguished from those undergone by the two parental genomes after separation from their common ancestor (i.e., NUMT (NUclear sequences of MiTochondrial origin) insertions, gene acquisitions, gene location movements, reciprocal translocation). We found that the physiological characteristics of this new yeast species are determined by specific but unequal contributions of its two parents, one of which could be identified as very closely related to an extant Pichia farinosa strain.

The Génolevures database.

The Génolevures online database (URL: http://www.genolevures.org) stores and provides the data and results obtained by the Génolevures Consortium through several campaigns of genome annotation of the yeasts in the Saccharomycotina subphylum (hemiascomycetes). This database is dedicated to large-scale comparison of these genomes, storing not only the different chromosomal elements detected in the sequences, but also the logical relations between them. The database is divided into a public part, accessible to anyone through Internet, and a private part where the Consortium members make genome annotations with our Magus annotation system; this system is used to annotate several related genomes in parallel. The public database is widely consulted and offers structured data, organized using a REST web site architecture that allows for automated requests. The implementation of the database, as well as its associated tools and methods, is evolving to cope with the influx of genome sequences produced by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS).