Transcriptional
responses of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to limitations of carbon, nitrogen,
phosphorus or sulfur.
Viktor Boer,
Johannes de Winde, Jack Pronk, Matthew Piper
Department of Biotechnology, Technical University of Delft, Julianalaan 67,
Delft, 2628 BC, The Netherlands (v.m.boer@tnw.tudelft.nl)
Growth of microorganisms in their natural environment and in many industrial applications is often limited by nutrient availability. To cope with nutrient limited conditions, microorganisms have evolved a multitude of strategies such as the induction of high affinity transport systems and the use of alternative sources of the limiting element. With the use of microarrays we have investigated the genome-wide transcriptional response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to limitations of glucose, ammonium, phosphate or sulfate. We used chemostat cultivation which enabled us to study the effects of one particular limitation while other growth parameters remained constant. In total, 1881 transcripts (31% of the annotated genome) were significantly changed between at least two growth conditions. Of those, 484 were significantly higher or lower in one limitation only. The functional annotations of these genes indicated cellular metabolism was altered to meet the growth requirements for nutrient-limited growth. Furthermore, we identified responses for several active transcription factors with a role in nutrient assimilation. Finally, 54 genes were identified that showed 10-fold higher or lower expression in a single condition only. The transcription of these genes can be used as indicators for the characterization of nutrient-limited growth conditions and provide information for metabolic engineering strategies.