Emergence of Phenotypically Distinct Subpopulations Is a Factor in Adaptation of Recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae under Glucose-Limited Conditions
Overview of the three subpopulations uncovered. Taken from the original publication: https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.02307-21Abstract
This came from one of the collaborations I worked on during my postdoc. Sometimes a strain can behave in a non-heteregenous way by splitting into different subpopulations, where each one performs a specific task, which makes it relevant to study each behavior separately. Here we investigated the adaptation of a S. cerevisiae strain that produces a heterologous insulin product at the sub-population level, by using a method called fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) that can separate cells at the single-cell level. We found 3 subpopulations, each one with a specific phenotype: (i) reduced insulin production, (ii) reduyced enzyme capacity in central carbon metabolism, and (iii) pseudohyphal growth. I helped Naia in some of the computational simulations that we performed to understand some of the subpopulations’ metabolic activities.
