Bio-conversion of methane into high profit margin compounds: an innovative, environmentally friendly and cost-effective platform for methane abatement.

Despite the environmental relevance of CH and forthcoming stricter regulations, the development of cost-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies for CH abatement is still limited. To date, one of the most promising solutions for the mitigation of this important GHG consists of the bioconversion of CH into bioproducts with a high profit margin. In this context, methanotrophs have been already proven as cell-factories of some of the most expensive products synthesized by microorganisms.

55 years together-our life with yeasts.

The authors look back at their life together in yeast research, the influences that shaped it, certain challenges and changes in laboratory and funding policies.

The Expanding Landscape of Moonlighting Proteins in Yeasts.

Moonlighting proteins are multifunctional proteins that participate in unrelated biological processes and that are not the result of gene fusion. A certain number of these proteins have been characterized in yeasts, and the easy genetic manipulation of these microorganisms has been useful for a thorough analysis of some cases of moonlighting. As the awareness of the moonlighting phenomenon has increased, a growing number of these proteins are being uncovered.

The repressor Rgt1 and the cAMP-dependent protein kinases control the expression of the SUC2 gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Background: A low level of glucose is required for maximal transcription of the SUC2 gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although the repressor Rgt1 binds the SUC2 promoter in gel-shift assays, it has been reported that Rgt1 has only minimal effects on SUC2 expression. Rgt1 acts together with Mth1 to repress the HXT genes encoding glucose transporters, and the release of Rgt1 from some HXT promoters requires cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) activity.

Evolution of moonlighting proteins: insight from yeasts.

The present article addresses the possibilities offered by yeasts to study the problem of the evolution of moonlighting proteins. It focuses on data available on hexokinase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae that moonlights in catabolite repression and on galactokinase from Kluyveromyces lactis that moonlights controlling the induction of the GAL genes. Possible experimental approaches to studying the evolution of moonlighting hexose kinases are suggested.