New insight
into the production and secretion of heterologous proteins from the 'non
conventional' yeast Zygosaccharomyces bailii.
Paola Branduardi,
Minoska Valli, Lilia Alberghina, Danilo Porro
Dip. Biotecnol. e Bioscienze, Università Milano-Bicocca, P.zza della Scienza,
Milano, 20126, Italy (paola.branduardi@unimib.it)
The non
conventional yeast Z. bailii, due to its pronounced resistance to several
environmental stresses such as high sugar, preservatives and ethanol
concentration, relative high temperatures and low pH values, can cause severe
problems associated to its capability to contaminate food, sauces, wine and
drinks. For that reason it is also referred as a spoilage yeast. At the same
time, these peculiar physiological and metabolic characteristics could
represent advantages in different biotechnological processes, often requiring
and/or implying severe chemical and physical parameters. Despite very few is
known about the molecular basis of such tolerances, the above mentioned
peculiarities, together with an high specific growth rate, motivated the
development of Z. bailii as a host for heterologous protein production. We
previously described the first molecular tools developed in order to manipulate
Z. bailii
and we showed the possibility to express proteins derived from different
sources (bacteria, yeasts, metazoan). Very recently we demonstrated the
secretion of said products (German Patent Application n. 102 52 245.6). Herein
the process of secretion of heterologous proteins from the non conventional
yeast Z. bailii
will be described in comparison with the data obtained in the well known host Saccharomyces
cerevisiae.
Differences and advantages of this new cellular host will be discussed,
together with the most recent observations regarding its cellular biology.