Engineering and characterization of alternative configurations of glycolysis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

One of the most conserved and central parts of metabolism is the pathway of glycolysis, that breaks down hexose sugars. While multiple variants of glycolytic pathway exist, the Emden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway which converts glucose to two molecules of pyruvate with the net gain of two ATP and two reduced NADH moieties is the one predominantly found in eukaryotes. This well-studied metabolic pathway is important for industrial biotechnology, because sugars are often used as substrate for microbial production of fuels and chemicals, as well as human health, because of the involvement of glycolytic dysfunction and deregulation in diseases such as cancer. The analysis of glycolytic enzyme function is complicated by the presence in many organisms of a large range of secondary ‘moonlighting’ functions besides the main glycolytic function. Because of its robustness, genetic accessibility, ease of culture and highly expressed glycolytic pathway, baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been key to research on glycolysis. Besides its role in food and beverage production and as industrial host for e.g. bioethanol and insulin production, this yeast has been intensively used as a model organism to study fundamental processes and pathways...