GENOME SHUFFLING AS AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD OF IMPROVING THE PROPERTIES OF DISTILLERY YEAST

Modern technologies of bioethanol production require distillery yeast characterized by thermotolerance, osmotolerance and increased resistance to secondary metabolites. To date, no strains have been observed in nature which possess all of the above-mentioned characteristics. For many years, intensive research has been carried out to improve the technological properties of industrial strains. A number of methods have been developed to allow genetic improvement of distillery yeasts. One of the most promising and effective methods is genome shuffling, allowing the creation of hybrids whose genome is a combination of large DNA fragments derived from strains with distinct phenotypic traits. Genome shuffling creates a chance that the new strain will have valuable functional genes, including their full operons. This, in turn, increases the chance of a long-term maintenance of beneficial technological features by the obtained hybrids.

1. Introduction. 2. Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. 2.1. Yeast genome. 2.2. Role of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast in the bioethanol production. 3. Pathways of genetic improvement. 4. Methods of genetic improvement. 5. Genome shuffling. 5.1. Improvement of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strains by genome shuffling method. 6. Conclusion