Transcriptional Regulation of Aerobic Metabolism in Pichia pastoris Fermentation

PLoS One. 2016 Aug 18;11(8):e0161502. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0161502. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the classical fermentation process in Pichia pastoris based on transcriptomics. We utilized methanol in pichia yeast cell as the focus of our study, based on two key steps: limiting carbon source replacement (from glycerol to methonal) and fermentative production of exogenous proteins. In the former, the core differential genes in co-expression net point to initiation of aerobic metabolism and generation of peroxisome. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) results showed that yeast gradually adapted methanol induction to increased cell volume, and decreased density, via large number of peroxisomes. In the fermentative production of exogenous proteins, the Gene Ontology (GO) mapping results show that PAS_chr2-1_0582 played a vital role in regulating aerobic metabolic drift. In order to confirm the above results, we disrupted PAS_chr2-1_0582 by homologous recombination. Alcohol consumption was equivalent to one fifth of the normal control, and fewer peroxisomes were observed in Δ0582 strain following methanol induction. In this study we determined the important core genes and GO terms regulating aerobic metabolic drift in Pichia, as well as developing new perspectives for the continued development within this field.

MeSH terms

  • Aerobiosis / physiology
  • Cell Size
  • DNA, Fungal / genetics
  • Fermentation
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation
  • Methanol / metabolism
  • Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
  • Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
  • Peroxisomes / metabolism
  • Pichia / genetics
  • Pichia / metabolism*
  • Pichia / ultrastructure
  • RNA, Fungal / genetics

Substances

  • DNA, Fungal
  • RNA, Fungal
  • Methanol

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81202446, 31271478) and the Jilin Provincial Science & Technology Department (Grant No. 20150311065YY). The funder provided support in the form of research materials, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The NovelBio Bio-Pharm Technology Co., Ltd provided support in the form of salaries for authors [DC, JZ], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the 'author contributions' section.