Gravity-Driven Adaptive Evolution of an Industrial Brewer’s Yeast Strain towards a Snowflake Phenotype in a 3D-Printed Mini Tower Fermentor

Andreas Conjaerts; Ronnie Willaert

Gravity-Driven Adaptive Evolution of an Industrial Brewer’s Yeast Strain towards a Snowflake Phenotype in a 3D-Printed Mini Tower Fermentor

2017

Andreas Conjaerts | Ronnie Willaert

We designed a mini tower fermentor that is suitable to perform adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) with gravity imposed as selective pressure, and suitable to evolve a weak flocculating industrial brewers’ strain towards a strain with a more extended aggregation phenotype. This phenotype is of particular interest in the brewing industry, since it simplifies yeast removal at the end of the fermentation, and many industrial strains are still not sufficiently flocculent. The flow of particles (yeast cells and flocs) was simulated, and the theoretical retainment advantage of aggregating cells over single cells in the tower fermentor was demonstrated. A desktop stereolithography (SLA) printer was used to construct the mini reactor from transparent methacrylic acid esters resin. The printed structures were biocompatible for yeast growth, and could be sterilised by autoclaving. The flexibility of 3D printing allowed the design to be optimized quickly. During the ALE experiment, yeast flocs were observed within two weeks after the start of the continuous cultivation. The flocs showed a “snowflake” morphology, and were not the result of flocculin interactions, but probably the result of (a) mutation(s) in gene(s) that are involved in the mother/daughter separation process.

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