Increased biomass production of industrial bakers' yeasts by overexpression of Hap4 gene

HAP4 encodes a transcriptional activator of respiration-related genes and so, redirection from fermentation to respiration flux should give rise to an increase in biomass production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae transformants that overexpress HAP4. With this aim, three bakers' yeasts, that is, V1 used for lean doughs, its 2-deoxy-D-glucose resistant derivative DOG21, and V3 employed for sweet doughs, were transformed with integrative cassettes that carried HAP4 gene under the control of constitutive promoter pTEF2; in addition VTH, DTH and 3TH transformants were selected and characterized. Transformants showed increased expression of HAP4 and respiration-related genes such as QCR7 and QCR8 with regard to parental, and similar expression of SUC2 and MAL12; these genes are relevant in bakers' industry. Invertase (Suc2p) and maltase (Mal12p) activities, growth and sugar consumption rates in laboratory (YPD) or industrial media (MAB) were also comparable in bakers' strains and their transformants, but VTH, DTH and 3TH increased their final biomass production by 9.5, 5.0 and 5.0% respectively as compared to their parentals in MAB. Furthermore, V1 and its transformant VTH had comparable capacity to ferment lean doughs (volume increase rate and final volume) while V3 and its transformant 3TH fermented sweet doughs in a similar manner. Therefore transformants possessed increased biomass yield and appropriate characteristics to be employed in bakers' industry because they lacked drug resistant markers and bacterial DNA, and were genetically stable.