The effect of two antifungal commercial formulations on the metabolism of a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain and their repercussion on fermentation evolution and phenylalanine catabolism

The effect of two commercial formulations (incorporating mepanipyrim and tetraconazole as active substances) on the metabolism of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Lalvin T73™, growing on a synthetic grape must, and their influence on the alcoholic fermentation course and the biosynthesis of volatiles derived from phenylalanine catabolism was studied. No relevant effects were observed for mepanipyrim except for glycerol production. On the contrary, in the presence of tetraconazole many genes and some proteins related to cell cycle progression and mitosis were repressed. This fact could explain the lower biomass concentration and the lower sugar consumption registered for tetraconazole at the end of the study. However, the biomass-to-ethanol yield was higher in connection with the overexpression of the ADH1 gene. The presence of tetraconazole residues seems to accelerate the Ehrlich pathway. These results agree with the overexpression of several genes (BAT1, PDC1, PDC5, ADH1, SFA1, ATF2, PFK1, PFK2 and ARO3) and a higher abundance of two proteins (Gap1p and Atf2p) involved in this metabolic pathway. •No effects for mepanipyrim residues were observed.•Tetraconazole residues increase the biomass-to-ethanol yield of S. cerevisiae T73.•Cell cycle progression and mitosis were repressed in the presence of tetraconazole.•Tetraconazole enhanced the Ehrlich pathway and the acetate ester formation.