Protein production in yeasts is related to the specific growth rate μ. To elucidate on this correlation, we studied the transcriptome of Pichia pastoris at different specific growth rates by cultivating a strain secreting human serum albumin at μ = 0.015 to 0.15 h(-1) in glucose-limited chemostats. Genome-wide regulation revealed that translation-related as well as mitochondrial genes were upregulated with increasing μ, while autophagy and other proteolytic processes, carbon source-responsive genes and other targets of the TOR pathway as well as many transcriptional regulators were downregulated at higher μ. Mating and sporulation genes were most active at intermediate μ of 0.05 and 0.075 h(-1) . At very slow growth (μ = 0.015 h(-1) ) gene regulation differs significantly, affecting many transporters and glucose sensing. Analysis of a subset of genes related to protein folding and secretion reveals that unfolded protein response targets such as translocation, endoplasmic reticulum genes, and cytosolic chaperones are upregulated with increasing growth rate while proteolytic degradation of secretory proteins is downregulated. We conclude that a high μ positively affects specific protein secretion rates by acting on multiple cellular processes.
Keywords: Filamentous growth; Recombinant protein secretion; Specific growth rate; Unfolded protein response; Yeast.
© 2014 The Authors. Biotechnology Journal published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs Licence, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non- commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.