Prof D Delneri, Dr J-M Schwartz
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
For thousands of years yeast has been a pivotal microorganism in many industrial processes in the food and beverages businesses. One trait of value to all fermentation industries is growth rate, since the faster growth means savings of time, which can be costly. Hybrids between Saccharomyces species with different thermo profiles are found in many industrial situations, in particular in brewing (S. cerevisiae thermo-tolerant x S. eubayanus cold-tolerant) and wine making (S. cerevisiae thermo-tolerant x S. kudriavzevii cold-tolerant). As the optimal growth at a specific temperature may be different for different strains (brewing tends to be cold, 12 °C, while wine fermentation is a bit warmer, 16 °C) there might be several genetic/metabolic routes by which yeast can reach a fast growth.
This project aims to exploit existent genetic diversity to find the faster growing yeast and develop bespoke strains that grow best under different conditions (industrial or environmental). The student will generate a large number of hybrid strains S. cerevisaie/S. kudriavzevii, with different combinations of alleles, and then select the fastest via a competition experiments in a turbidostat, a continuous culture methods where the continuous feeding of rich media allows each strain to grow at its maximum rate resulting in the fastest being selected (different selection temperatures will be applied). The student will carry out genomic, phenotypic and metabolomics analysis of the best performer and will shed light on how cell growth rate is regulated and how fast a eukaryotic cell can grow. Understanding how to improve of growth rate and biomass will be of interest to fermentation and biotech industries producing flavours and platform chemicals for new bespoke compounds development, biofuels, and new enzymes.
Funding Notes
This project is to be funded under the BBSRC Doctoral Training Programme. If you are interested in this project, please make direct contact with the Principal Supervisor to arrange to discuss the project further as soon as possible. You MUST also submit an online application form - full details on how to apply can be found on the BBSRC DTP website www.manchester.ac.uk/bbsrcdtpstudentships
Applications are invited from UK/EU nationals only. Applicants must have obtained, or be about to obtain, at least an upper second class honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject.
https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/study/research/bbsrc-dtp/apply/
References
1. Paget CM, Schwartz JM, Delneri D. (2014) Environmental systems biology of cold-tolerant phenotype in Saccharomyces species adapted to grow at different temperatures Molecular Ecology; 23: 5241-5257.
2. Naseeb S., Carter Z., Minnis D., Donaldson I, Zeef L, and Delneri D. (2016) Widespread impact of chromosomal inversions on gene expression uncovers network robustness via phenotypic buffering. Molecular Biology and Evolution 33: 1679-1696.
3. Chapman SP, Paget CM, Johnson GN, Schwartz JM. (2015) Flux balance analysis reveals acetate metabolism modulates cyclic electron flow and alternative glycolytic pathways in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Front Plant Sci 6: 474.
4. Díaz De Rienzo MA, Banat IM, Dolman BM, Winterburn JB., and Martin P (2015) Sophorolipid biosurfactants: Antibacterial activities and characteristics. New Biotechnology, 32, 720-726.
5. Hooks KB, Naseeb S, Parker S, Griffiths-Jones S, and Delneri D. (2016) Novel intronic RNA structures contributes to maintenance of phenotype in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genetics 203: 1469-1481
Continue with Facebook
