Vanillin causes the activation of Yap1 and mitochondrial fragmentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Vanillin and furfural are derived from lignocellulosic biomass and inhibit yeast growth and fermentation as biomass conversion inhibitors. Furfural has been shown to induce oxidative stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Since there has been no report on the relationship between vanillin and oxidative stress, we investigated whether vanillin caused oxidative stress in yeast cells. We showed that vanillin caused the nuclear accumulation of Yap1, an oxidative stress responsive transcription factor, and subsequent transcriptional activation of Yap1-target genes. The growth of the null mutant of the YAP1 gene (yap1Δ) was delayed in the presence of vanillin, which indicated that Yap1 plays a role in the acquisition of tolerance to vanillin. We also demonstrated that vanillin facilitated the fragmentation of mitochondria. These findings suggest that the toxicity of vanillin involves damage induced by oxidative stress.