Prospecting and engineering yeasts for ethanol production under inhibitory conditions: an experimental design analysis.

The recently discovered wild yeast Wickerhamomyces sp. UFFS-CE-3.1.2 was analyzed through a high-throughput experimental design to improve ethanol yields in synthetic media with glucose, xylose, and cellobiose as carbon sources and acetic acid, furfural, formic acid, and NaCl as fermentation inhibitors. After Plackett-Burman (PB) and central composite design (CCD), the optimized condition was used in a fermentation kinetic analysis to compare this yeast's performance with an industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain (JDY-01) genetically engineered to achieve a higher xylose fermentation capacity and fermentation inhibitors tolerance by overexpressing the genes XYL1, XYL2, XKS1, and TAL1. Our results show that furfural and NaCl had no significant effect on sugar consumption by UFFS-CE-3.1.2. Surprisingly, acetic acid negatively affected glucose but not xylose and cellobiose consumption. In contrast, the pH positively affected all the analyzed responses, indicating a cell's preference for alkaline environments. In the CCD, sugar concentration negatively affected the yields of ethanol, xylitol, and cellular biomass. Therefore, fermentation kinetics were carried out with the average concentrations of sugars and fermentation inhibitors and the highest tested pH value (8.0). Although UFFS-CE-3.1.2 fermented glucose efficiently, xylose and cellobiose were mainly used for cellular growth. Interestingly, the genetically engineered strain JDY-01 consumed ~ 30% more xylose and produced ~ 20% more ethanol. Also, while UFFS-CE-3.1.2 only consumed 32% of the acetic acid of the medium, JDY-01 consumed > 60% of it, reducing its toxic effects. Thus, the overexpressed genes played an essential role in the inhibitors' tolerance, and the applied engineering strategy may help improve 2G ethanol production.

Distribution of pharmacogene allele and phenotype frequencies in Brazilian psychiatric patients.

Purpose: This work was designed to identify the pharmacogenetic profile of Brazilian psychiatric patients receiving psychoactive drug treatment according to ethnicity. Methods: Based on the GnTech® database, this cross-sectional study analyzed data from self-reported sociodemographic and genetic results from the next-generation sequencing panel composed of 26 pharmacogenes from 359 psychotropic drug users. Results: Variant frequencies of multiple pharmacogenes presented differences between ethnicities (CYP3A5, CYP2D6, CYP1A2, CYP2B6, CYP3A4, UGT1A4, UGT2B15, ABCB1 rs1045642, ADRA2A rs1800544, COMT rs4680, GRIK4 rs1954787, GSK3B rs334558, GSK3B rs6438552, HTR1A rs6295, HTR2A rs7997012, HTR2C rs1414334, MTHFR rs1801131, OPRM1 rs1799971 and 5-HTTLPR), endorsing the necessity of individual-level analyses in drug treatment. Conclusion: A discussion of pharmacogenomic test implementation in psychiatric clinical practice is needed to improve treatment choices, especially in Brazil, a multiethnic country.

The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of a Chloridea (Heliothis) subflexa (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) morpho-species.

We investigate the complete mitogenome of a pheromone-trapped morpho-species of Chloridea subflexa from Brazil (initially identified by the Sanger sequencing of partial mtCOI gene) as 15 323 bp (KT598688) via next generation sequencing platform. The mitogenome has an A/T rich base composition (A: 40.4%; T: 40.3%; C: 11.5%; G: 7.8%), and included 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 tRNAs, 2 ribosomal RNAs and a putative replication region (ca. 323 bp). All PCGs start with a methionine (M) amino acid except the COI gene which has an arginine (R). The trnL2 and trn-Lys genes were partially embedded within the COII gene, while the trn-His gene was completely embedded within the ND4 gene. All PCGs ends with the "TAA" stop codon except ND3 which has a "TAG" stop codon.