Contact Us

GENTAUR Europe

 GENTAUR Europe BVBA
Voortstraat 49, 1910 Kampenhout BELGIUM
Tel 0032 16 58 90 45 
Fax 0032 16 50 90 45
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Gentaur Bulgaria

 GENTAUR BULGARIA
53 Iskar Str. 1191 Kokalyane, Sofia
Tel 0035924682280 
Fax 0035929830072
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    GENTAUR France

     GENTAUR France SARL
    9, rue Lagrange, 75005 Paris 
    Tel 01 43 25 01 50 
    Fax 01 43 25 01 60
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Gentaur Germany

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.3em;">

      GmbH Marienbongard 20
    52062 Aachen Deutschland
    Tel (+49) 0241 56 00 99 68 
    Fax (+49) 0241 56 00 47 88 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica; line-height: 15.59375px; ">
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.3em;">

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Gentaur London

     GENTAUR Ltd. 
    Howard Frank Turnberry House 
    1404-1410 High Road 
    Whetstone London N20 9BH 
    Tel 020 3393 8531 
    Fax 020 8445 9411
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    GENTAUR Poland

     GENTAUR Poland Sp. z o.o. 

    ul. Grunwaldzka 88/A m.2

    81-771 Sopot, Poland
    Tel  058 710 33 44
    Fax 058 710 33 48 
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    GENTAUR Nederland

     GENTAUR Nederland BV
    Kuiper 1 
    5521 DG Eersel Nederland
    Tel 0208-080893 
    Fax 0497-517897
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Gentaur Italy

     GENTAUR SRL IVA IT03841300167

    Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, 6, 24122 Bergamo
    Tel 02 36 00 65 93 
    Fax 02 36 00 65 94
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    GENTAUR Spain

     GENTAUR Spain
    Tel 0911876558
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Genprice USA

    usa-flagGenprice Inc, Logistics
    547, Yurok Circle
    San Jose, CA 95123
    Phone/Fax: 

    (408) 780-0908 

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    skype chat

    GENPRICE Inc. invoicing/ accounting:
    6017 Snell Ave, Suite 357
    San Jose, CA. 96123

     

    Gentaur Serbia

    serbiaSerbia, Macedonia FlagMacedonia, 

    montenegro-flagMontenegro, croatiaCroatia: 
    Tel 0035929830070 
    Fax 0035929830072
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    GENTAUR Romania

    romGENTAUR Romania

    Tel 0035929830070 
    Fax 0035929830072
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    GENTAUR Greece

    grGENTAUR Greece 

    Tel 00302111768494 
    Fax 0032 16 50 90 45

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Other countries

    Other countries
    Luxembourg +35220880274
    Schweiz Züri +41435006251
    Danmark +4569918806
    Österreich +43720880899
    Ceská republika Praha +420246019719
    Ireland Dublin +35316526556
    Norge Oslo +4721031366
    Finland Helsset +358942419041
    Sverige Stockholm +46852503438
    Magyarország Budapest +3619980547

    seal-in-search-symantec

     

     

    Wednesday, 02 April 2014 10:02

    New yeast species travelled the globe with a little help from the beetles

    Rate this item
    (1 Vote)

    Wickerhamomyces arborarius falsecolourResearchers from the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC) at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) have identified a new globe-trotting yeast species that lives on tree-associated beetles. This new species demonstrates the importance of preserving biodiversity, as yeasts like this may help efforts to develop renewable fuel sources in the future.

    Preserving biodiversity must go beyond plants and animals and also preserve the microbial life. Threats to habitats, for example through oil exploration, could destroy forever potential solutions to global challenges locked up in the microbial life itself. Yeasts, well known for their role in brewing beer and baking bread, can also ferment sugars from plant material into biofuels. However, this process isn’t very efficient, especially when waste plant matter is used, as the structures are tough to break down.

    Different yeasts use different types of sugars, thrive in different conditions and produce a diverse range of different products. Crossing strains with just the right mix of characteristics could produce a yeast that’s perfect for biofuel production. The announcement of the production of the first artificial yeast chromosome demonstrates how using synthetic biology gives us an opportunity to design a new yeast with these characteristics. But identifying these relies on studying and preserving yeast biodiversity.

    In an effort to address this issue, NCYC, which is based at IFR on the Norwich Research Park, has recently initiated a programme to screen its 4000+ different yeast strains to find the biofuel-producing stars. But it wants more.

    “We’re looking for interesting yeasts from interesting habitats,” said Dr Steve James.

    The search for yeast biodiversity spans the globe, and has just yielded an entirely new species. Wickerhamomyces arborarius was first discovered on a flower growing in the high altitude Maquipucuna cloud forest in north-west Ecuador. It’s the latest in a long standing collaboration between NCYC and the Colección de Levaduras Quito Católica (CLQCA) in Ecuador. The Ecuadorian team, led by Dr Javier Carvajal, has been scouring unique and sensitive habitats such as the cloud forests, the Amazon rainforest, the Andean highlands as well as the Galápagos Islands in search of novel yeasts, which NCYC then characterises and preserves.


    Xyleborus glabratus-dorsallateral
    With funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), NCYC have been characterising this yeast. Genomic analysis of the Ecuadorean yeast revealed it had no known matches. But over time, other yeast hunters found similar strains of the Ecuadorean species. One was found on a nutgall tree in a remote mountainous region of Taiwan by Dr Ching-Fu Lee of the National Hsinchu University of Education. Three other strains were identified from wood-boring beetles living on laurel trees in Georgia, USA, by Dr Thomas Harrington from Iowa State University, whose research team were investigating how these beetles transmit a fungal pathogen known to cause laurel wilt disease.

    “This new species is a real globetrotter,” said Dr James. “It’s possible the yeast originated in Asia, and was subsequently brought to the USA by these insects. Although this beetle has yet to be found in Ecuador, three other very similar species have recently been found there, so it’s possible that the yeast got to South America via the beetles too.”

    Interestingly, one of the US strains was isolated from a beetle that had been surface sterilised, potentially indicating that this yeast species actually lives inside the insect, in its gut. This isn’t unusual, as like us, insects host gut flora – bacteria and yeasts that help them digest their food. These particular beetles eat wood, and rely on their microbial gut flora to help digest its tough structure. The same structure is found in the sorts of waste plant materials that could be suitable sources of biofuels if only more efficient ways of realising their potential were available. If this yeast is indeed a gut symbiont of the beetles, it should also be resistant to some of the breakdown products from wood digestion that can inhibit other biofuel-producing yeasts.

    The NCYC team are now fully characterising this new species, and plan to test what characteristics might be useful for the production of biotechnological applications.

    “We’re really interested in finding out how this yeast evolved tolerance to rotting wood environments, to guide attempts to improve production yeasts,” said Dr Ian Roberts, curator of the NCYC. “It’s just the sort of characteristic you’d put into a designer yeast for biofuel production.”

    In testing and characterising yeast, he and his team work closely with Professor Keith Waldron and his colleagues in The Biorefinery Centre at the Institute of Food Research, which is strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

    But their search for more yeasts to add to their collection continues. Conservative estimates put the current total number of yeast species at 150,000, and so far globally we’ve possibly discovered only 1% of this total. NCYC’s Ecuadorean collaboration has yielded dozens of new, as yet uncharacterised yeasts, and more extreme environments and habitats are currently being explored for the chance to find potentially useful yeasts. But unless we preserve those habitats, and the precious biodiversity they contain, we could lose that chance forever.

    Read 1821 times