Home • Spathaspora arborariae UFMG-HMD-19.1 v1.0
Spathaspora arborariae. Image by David Krause.
Spathaspora arborariae. Image by David Krause.

Spathaspora arborariae has been sequenced because it is one of the few species of budding yeasts that is known to ferment D-xylose (1). It has been previously isolated from rotting wood in both the Atlantic Rainforest and Cerrado ecosystems in Brazil (1).  Its ability to ferment xylose makes it a potentially useful yeast for biofuel production from plant hydrolysates (2). S. arborariae produces a mixture of ethanol and xylitol during xylose fermentation under oxygen-limited conditions (3). A draft genome consisting of 41 scaffolds has been previously assembled using short-read sequencing technology (4), but improved assembly using longer read technology will provide resources for resequencing projects as well as improved assembly of subtelomeric regions of chromosomes.

References
1. Cadete RM, et al. (2009) Spathaspora arborariae sp. nov., a d-xylose-fermenting yeast species isolated from rotting wood in Brazil. FEMS Yeast Res. 9(8):1338-1342.
2. da Cunha-Pereira F, et al. (2011) Conversion of sugars present in rice hull hydrolysates into ethanol by Spathaspora arborariae, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and their co-fermentations. Biores. Technol. 102(5):4218-4225.
3. Cadete RM, et al. (2016) Exploring xylose metabolism in Spathaspora species: XYL1.2 from Spathaspora passalidarum as the key for efficient anaerobic xylose fermentation in metabolic engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Biotechnol. Biofuels. (9):167.
4. Lobo FP, et al. (2014) Draft Genome Sequence of the d-Xylose-Fermenting Yeast Spathaspora arborariae UFMG-HM19.1AT. Genome Announc. 2(1):e01163-13.