Resistance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to High Concentrations of Furfural Is Based on NADPH-Dependent Reduction by at Least Two Oxireductases

Abstract

Biofuels derived from lignocellulosic biomass hold promises for a sustainable fuel economy, but several problems hamper their economical feasibility. One important problem is the presence of toxic compounds in processed lignocellulosic hydrolysates, with furfural as a key toxin. While Saccharomyces cerevisiae has some intrinsic ability to reduce furfural to the less-toxic furfuryl alcohol, higher resistance is necessary for process conditions. By comparing an evolved, furfural-resistant strain and its parent in microaerobic, glucose-limited chemostats at increasing furfural challenge, we elucidate key mechanism and the molecular basis of both natural and high-level furfural resistance. At lower concentrations of furfural, NADH-dependent oxireductases are the main defense mechanism. At furfural concentrations above 15 mM, however, ¹³ C-flux and global array-based transcript analysis demonstrated that the NADPH-generating flux through the pentose phosphate pathway increases and that NADPH-dependent oxireductases become the major resistance mechanism. The transcript analysis further revealed that iron transmembrane transport is upregulated in response to furfural. While these responses occur in both strains, high-level resistance in the evolved strain was based on strong induction of ADH7 , the uncharacterized open reading frame (ORF) YKL071W , and four further, likely NADPH-dependent, oxireductases. By overexpressing the ADH7 gene and the ORF YKL071W , we inversely engineered significantly increased furfural resistance in the parent strain, thereby demonstrating that these two enzymes are key elements of the resistance phenotype.