On the catabolism of amino acids in the yeast Dekkera bruxellensis and the implications for industrial fermentation processes

In the last years several reports have reported the capacity of the yeast Dekkera (Brettanomyces) bruxellensis to survive and adapt to the industrial process of alcoholic fermentation. Much of this feature seems to relate to the ability to assimilate limiting sources of nutrients, or somehow some that are inaccessible to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in particular the sources of nitrogen. Among them, amino acids (AA) are relevant in terms of beverage musts, and could also be important for bioethanol. In view of the limited knowledge on the control of AA, the present work combines physiological and genetic studies to understand how it operates in D. bruxellensis in response to oxygen availibility. The results allowed separation of the AA in three groups of preferentiality and showed that glutamine is the preferred AA irrespective of the presence of oxygen. Glutamate and aspartate were also preferred AA in anaerobiosis, as indicated by the physiological data. Gene expression experiments showed that, apart from the conventional nitrogen catabolic repression mechanism that is operating in aerobiosis, there seems to be an oxygen-independent mechanism acting to overexpress key genes like GAP1, GDH1, GDH2 and GLT1 to ensure adequate anaerobic growth even in the presence of non-preferential nitrogen source. This could be of major importance for the industrial fitness of this yeast species.