BackgroundGlucaric acid is a high-value-added chemical that can be used in various fields. Because chemical oxidation of glucose to produce glucaric acid is not environmentally friendly, microbial production has attracted increasing interest recently. Biological pathways to synthesize glucaric acid from glucose in both Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae by co-expression of genes encoding myo-inositol-1-phosphate synthase (Ino1), myo-inositol oxygenase (MIOX), and uronate dehydrogenase (Udh) have been constructed. However, low activity and instability of MIOX from Mus musculus was proved to be the bottleneck in this pathway.ResultsA more stable miox4 from Arabidopsis thaliana was chosen in the present study. In addition, high copy delta-sequence integration of miox4 into the S. cerevisiae genome was performed to increase its expression level further. Enzymatic assay and quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed that delta-sequence-based integrative expression increased MIOX4 activity and stability, thus increasing glucaric acid titer about eight times over that of episomal expression. By fed-batch fermentation supplemented with 60 mM (10.8 g/L) inositol, the multi-copy integrative expression S. cerevisiae strain produced 6 g/L (28.6 mM) glucaric acid from myo-inositol, the highest titer that had been ever reported in S. cerevisiae.ConclusionsIn this study, glucaric acid titer was increased to 6 g/L in S. cerevisiae by integrating the miox4 gene from A. thaliana and the udh gene from Pseudomonas syringae into the delta sequence of genomes. Delta-sequence-based integrative expression increased both the number of target gene copies and their stabilities. This approach could be used for a wide range of metabolic pathway engineering applications with S. cerevisiae.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-018-0914-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) complexes function to form multivesicular bodies for sorting of proteins destined for the yeast vacuole or the mammalian lysosome. ESCRT components are well conserved in eukaryotes, and their mutations cause neurodegenerative diseases and other cellular pathologies in humans. PMR1 is the orthologous gene of two human genes for calcium pumps secretory pathway Ca(2+)-ATPase (SPCA1, ATP2C1) and sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-ATPase (SERCA, ATP2A2), which are mutated in Hailey-Hailey and Darier genetic diseases, respectively. Here we show that deletion mutation of ESCRT components Snf7, Snf8, Stp22, Vps20, Vps25, Vps28, or Vps36 activates the calcium/calcineurin signaling in yeast cells, but surprisingly leads to a nearly 50% reduction in expression of the ER/Golgi calcium pump gene PMR1 independent of calcium stress. These ESCRT mutants are known to have a defect in Rim101 activation. Ectopic expression of a constitutively active form of Rim101 or further deletion of NRG1 in these mutants partially suppresses their calcium hypersensitivity. Deletion of NRG1 also completely rescues the expression of PMR1 in these mutants to the level of the wild type. Promoter mutagenesis, gel electrophoretic mobility shift assay, and chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis demonstrate that Nrg1 binds to two motifs in the PMR1 promoter. In addition, expression of PMR1 under the control of its promoters with mutated Nrg1-binding motifs suppresses the calcium hypersensitivity of these ESCRT mutants. Collectively, these data have uncovered a function of ESCRT components in regulating PMR1 expression through the Nrg1/Rim101 pathway. Our findings provide important clues for understanding human diseases related to calcium homeostasis.

Here we have identified 120 gene deletion mutants that are sensitive to 0.4M calcium in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Twenty-seven of these mutants are of genes involved in the vacuolar protein sorting pathway, including those encoding the seven components of the ESCRT complexes, and ten of them encode the components and assembly factors of the vacuolar H(+)-ATPase. Both Mediator and Paf1 complexes modulating the activity of the general transcription machinery are involved in the calcium sensitivity of yeast cells. Most of these mutants show elevated intracellular calcium contents in response to calcium stress. The calcium sensitivity of 106 mutants can be completely suppressed by 10mM Mg(2+), 56 of which can also be suppressed by the inhibitor of calcineurin, cyclosporine A. Therefore, the calcium sensitivity of nearly a half of these 120 mutations is at least partially due to the activation of calcineurin and can be modulated by magnesium ion.