Genetically Modified Yeasts in Wine Biotechnology

Abstract

Modern enology relies on the use of selected yeasts, both Saccharomyces and non-conventional, as starters to achieve reliable fermentations. That allows the selection of the right strain for each process and also the improvement of such strain, by traditional methods or approaches involving genetic manipulation. Genetic engineering allows deletion, overexpression and point mutation of endogenous yeast genes with known interesting features in winemaking and the introduction of foreign and novel activities. Besides, it is a powerful tool to understand the molecular mechanisms behind the desirable traits of a good wine strain, as those directed mutations reveal phenotypes of interest. The genetic editing technology called CRISPR-Cas9 allows a fast, easy and non-invasive manipulation of industrial strains that renders cells with no traces of foreign genetic material. Genetic manipulation of non-Saccharomyces wine yeasts has been less common, but those new technologies together with the increasing knowledge on the genome of such strains opens a promising field of yeast improvement.