Improved growth and ethanol fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in the presence of acetic acid by overexpression of SET5 and PPR1

To better understand the contribution of zinc-finger proteins to environmental stress tolerance, particularly inhibition from acetic acid, which is a potent inhibitor for cellulosic ethanol production by microbial fermentations, SET5 and PPR1 were overexpressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae BY4741. With 5 g/L acetic acid addition, engineered strains BY4741/SET5 and BY4741/PPR1 showed improved growth and enhanced ethanol fermentation performance compared to that with the control strain. Similar results were also observed in ethanol production using corn stover hydrolysate. Further studies indicated that SET5 and PPR1 overexpression in S. cerevisiae significantly improved activities of antioxidant enzymes and ATP generation in the presence of acetic acid, and consequently decreased intracellular accumulation of reactive oxygen species (50.9 and 45.7%, respectively). These results revealed the novel functions of SET5 and PPR1 for the improvement of yeast acetic acid tolerance, and also implicated the involvement of these proteins in oxidative stress defense and energy metabolism in S. cerevisiae. This work also demonstrated that overexpression of SET5 and PPR1 would be a feasible strategy to increase cellulosic ethanol production efficiency.