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Why, when, and how did yeast evolve alcoholic fermentation?

Sofia Dashko1, Nerve Zhou, Concetta Compagno

  • 1Wine Research Centre, University of Nova Gorica, Vipava, Slovenia; Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

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|May 15, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Yeasts evolved alcoholic fermentation to thrive on fruit sugars. This metabolic trait, initially for anaerobic survival, later provided a competitive edge in aerobic environments, influencing yeast evolution.

Keywords:
alcoholic fermentationcarbon metabolismevolutionlife strategyyeast

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Area of Science:

  • * Microbial Ecology
  • * Metabolic Evolution
  • * Yeast Physiology

Background:

  • * Fruits provide simple sugars, favoring yeast proliferation.
  • * Saccharomyces cerevisiae and related yeasts dominate these sugar-rich niches.
  • * A key yeast trait is rapid sugar-to-ethanol conversion under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • * To investigate the evolutionary pressures and environmental conditions that led to aerobic alcoholic fermentation in yeasts.
  • * To reconstruct the ancient environments that may have driven the evolution of fermentative lifestyles.
  • * To understand the metabolic remodeling of carbon metabolism in Saccharomycetaceae.

Main Methods:

  • * Review of recent data on carbon metabolism in Saccharomycetaceae species.
  • * Reconstruction of ancient environmental conditions.
  • * Analysis of evolutionary trajectories of metabolic pathways.

Main Results:

  • * Exploration of anaerobic niches likely initiated the evolution of increased ethanol production.
  • * Enhanced glycolytic flux provided a competitive advantage in microbial communities.
  • * Aerobic alcoholic fermentation evolved as a tool for yeast competition, later refined by regulatory mechanisms like glucose repression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Conclusions:

  • * The ability to produce ethanol under aerobic conditions represents a significant evolutionary adaptation for yeasts.
  • * Early anaerobic sugar degradation capacity laid the groundwork for later aerobic fermentation.
  • * Regulatory mechanisms like glucose repression further optimized metabolic control and competitive success in specific yeast lineages.