Study of the mortality mechanisms of yeasts in fermentation: Role of micronutrients limitations and nitrogen

¹ UMR SPO, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
² Lallemand SAS, Blagnac, France

Abstract

Yeast cell death can occur during wine alcoholic fermentation and lead to sluggish or stuck fermentations. The mechanisms underlying cell death during yeast starvation in alcoholic fermentations remain unclear. In this work we addressed yeast cell death using conceptual framework from ageing studies showing that yeast resistance to starvation can be influenced by the nature of the nutrient limiting cell growth. We examined cell death occurrence considering yeast cells ability to elicit an appropriate response to a set of nutrient limitations. We show that several micronutrients limitations (oleic acid, ergosterol, pantothenic acid and nicotinic acid) trigger cell death in a nitrogen-dependent manner. We provide evidence that the nitrogen Tor/Sch9 signaling pathway is involved in triggering cell death. In such conditions, yeast cells fail to acquire stress resistance given a restriction at a post-transcriptional level. We have examined the ability of different nitrogen sources to trigger cell death and show that they impact differentially on cell death and that NH₄⁺ had a strong death inducing capacity. Finally, the QTLs approaches allowed the mapping of a set of loci controlling cell death under oleic acid and pantothenic acid starvation consistent with a multigenic control.