Yeast Metabolism and Its Exploitation in Emerging Winemaking Trends: From Sulfite Tolerance to Sulfite Reduction

Abstract

Sulfite is widely used as a preservative in foods and beverages for its antimicrobial and antioxidant activities, particularly in winemaking where SO2 is frequently added. Thus, sulfite resistance mechanisms have been extensively studied in the fermenting yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Nevertheless, in recent years, a negative perception has developed towards sulfites in wine, because of human health and environmental concerns. Increasing consumer demand for wines with low SO2 content is pushing the winemaking sector to develop new practices in order to reduce sulfite content in wine, including the use of physical and chemical alternatives to SO2, and the exploitation of microbial resources to the same purpose. For this reason, the formation of sulfur-containing compounds by wine yeast has become a crucial point of research during the last decades. In this context, the aim of this review is to examine the main mechanisms weaponized by Saccharomyces cerevisiae for coping with sulfite, with a particular emphasis on the production of sulfite and glutathione, sulfite detoxification through membrane efflux (together with the genetic determinants thereof), and production of SO2-binding compounds.

Revealing the Yeast Diversity of the Flor Biofilm Microbiota in Sherry Wines Through Internal Transcribed Spacer-Metabarcoding and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

“…Therefore, these yeasts may be of interest in wine production because they would produce important metabolites for longer times due to their ethanol tolerance. Killer toxin production by the non- Saccharomyces yeasts identified, such as the one produced by yeasts of the Pichia genus ( Vicente et al, 2021 ) could be a potential way to reduce SO 2 levels in wine as market demands ( Zara and Nardi, 2021 ).…”

Yeast stress and death caused by the synergistic effect of ethanol and SO<SUB>2</SUB> during the second fermentation of sparkling wines

“…The FZF1 gene encodes a plasma membrane protein (Fzf1p) involved in the expression of the SSU1 sulphite efflux pump (Avram et al, 1999;Park and Bakalinsky, 2000). In turn, the SSU1 gene, a marker of adaptive evolutionary advantage that is found in oenological yeast as a result of the use of sulphites in winemaking Zimmer et al, 2014), is positively correlated with the tolerance and detoxification mechanism of sulphite (Marullo et al, 2020;Zara and Nardi, 2021).…”

“…Although the use of SO 2 for the conservation of wines is an old practice (Gould and Russell, 2003), ingestion of sulphites through the consumption of food and drink can cause some related adverse clinical effects (Vally et al, 2009) ; for this reason, there is a worldwide movement towards decreasing the concentration of sulphites in wines. Although several studies have shown alternatives for SO 2 and sought to reduce its use (Capece et al, 2020;Christofi et al, 2021;Marchante et al, 2019;Shih et al, 2020;Simonin et al, 2020;Zara and Nardi, 2021), to date, no other physical technique or chemical additive can provide the efficacy and broad spectrum of action of this compound (Lisanti et al, 2019).…”

“…To reduce the toxicity of sulfur dioxide, yeasts use several mechanisms, such as increasing the production of acetaldehyde to bond with SO 2 and thus reducing the free fraction (Cheraiti et al, 2010;Park and Hwang, 2008); activating the Ssu1p sulphite pump encoded with the SSU1 gene (Marullo et al, 2020;Zara and Nardi, 2021); activating sulfur amino acid biosynthesis (Divol et al, 2012) ; and/or modifying the overall metabolic and cell cycle that lead to a "viable but non-culturable" cell behaviour (Divol and Lonvaud-Funel, 2005;Salma et al, 2013).…”

Technological Characteristics of Wild Non-Saccharomyces Sourced from Banana Fruit and Honey

“…The gene leading to reduced H 2 S formation as an allele of MET10 (MET10-932), which encodes a catalytic subunit of sulfite reductase, MET1, MET5, MET8, or MET10, and loss of sulfite reductase activity is inversely correlated with H 2 S formation [32]. However, Good Manufacturing Practices must be strengthened to deal with the p roblem of volatile sulphur production in wines [33][34][35][36][37][38][39].…”