“Fight-flight-or-freeze” – how Yarrowia lipolytica responds to stress at molecular level?

Abstract

Yarrowia lipolytica is a popular yeast species employed in multiple biotechnological production processes. High resistance to extreme environmental conditions or metabolic burden triggered by synthetically forced over-synthesis of a target metabolite has its practical consequences. The proud status of an “industrial workhorse” that Y. lipolytica has gained is directly related to such a quality of this species. With the increasing amount of knowledge coming from detailed functional studies and comprehensive omics analyses, it is now possible to start painting the landscape of the molecular background behind stress response and adaptation in Y. lipolytica. This review summarizes the current state-of-art of a global effort in revealing how Y. lipolytica responds to both environmental threats and the intrinsic burden caused by the overproduction of recombinant secretory proteins at the molecular level. Detailed lists of genes, proteins, molecules, and biological processes deregulated upon exposure to external stress factors or affected by over-synthesis of heterologous proteins are provided. Specificities and universalities of Y. lipolytica cellular response to different extrinsic and intrinsic threats are highlighted. Key points • Y. lipolytica as an industrial workhorse is subjected to multiple stress factors. • Cellular responses together with involved genes, proteins, and molecules are reviewed. • Native stress response mechanisms are studied and inspire engineering strategies.

Adaptive responses of erythritol-producing Yarrowia lipolytica to thermal stress after evolution

“…Current knowledge of the thermotolerance mechanism of Y. lipolytica dependent on transcriptome analysis could be mainly divided into aspects including that cells upregulate the expression of genes responsible for trehalose and alpha ketoglutaric acid accumulation, ATP synthesis, oxidative stress response, heat shock response, central carbon metabolism, amino acid metabolism (alanine, arginine, asparagine, glutamine, methionine, proline, and histidine), and thiamine metabolism (Qiu et al 2021 ; Celinska 2022 ). Thus, it is expected that the differential expression of genes related to these processes will be identified in this study.…”

“…At present, what we have known about the defense mechanism of yeast upon thermal stress predominantly comes from the study of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Caspeta et al 2014 ; Gao et al 2016 ; Muhlhofer et al 2019 ; Wang et al 2022 ). For the erythritol-producing Y. lipolytica , the central carbon metabolism and amino acid metabolism were found to be involved in the thermal stress response at a transcriptional level, while ATP, thiamine, and trehalose were critical molecules for cells to grow under conditions of high temperature (Qiu et al 2021 ; Celinska 2022 ). Beyond these, our understanding of the thermotolerance mechanism of Y. lipolytica is still inadequate.…”

Understanding the Transfer and Persistence of Antimicrobial Resistance in Aquaculture Using a Model Teleost Gut System

“…The mechanical failure resulted in an increase in pH to approximately 11. Yarrowia, a yeast commonly used as a probiotic in fish feed (9) and known for its high pH tolerance (10), thrived under these alkaline conditions. The fault which also appears to have purged many abundant bacteria, including those carrying the plasmid.…”

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) Biosynthesis by an Engineered <i>Yarrowia Lipolytica</i> Using Co-Substrate Strategy

“…lipolytica grows relatively fast with a doubling time of 1.7 h -1 [8] and can be cultivated at various scales, which makes it suitable for both research and large-scale bioproduct applications. Additional benefits of this yeast for PHB production include: 1) the avoidance of bacteriophage attacks at industrial levels; 2) tolerant to inhibitors and pH stresses; and 3) forming filamentous cells under late growth stage that facilitate gravity separation [9].…”