title: Use of a continuous multistage bioreactor to mimic winemaking fermentation.
abstract: Continuous fermentation set-ups are of great interest for studying the physiology of microorganisms. In winemaking conditions, yeasts go through a growth phase and a stationary phase during which more than half of the sugar is fermented. A comprehensive study of wine-yeast physiology must therefore include yeasts in a non-growing phase. This condition is impossible to achieve within a chemostat, which led us to design a multi-stage fermentation device. In this study, we evaluated the ability of such a device to reproduce, in a series of steady states, the conditions of batch fermentation. Two-stage and four-stage fermentations were carried out with two different strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The main characteristics of the fermentation process (biomass growth, by-product content of the medium) were compared with those observed in batch mode at the same stage of fermentation, which was defined by glucose uptake. The four-stage configuration showed a better ability to reproduce batch fermentation characteristics than the two-stage set-up. It also allowed to uncouple the variations of environmental parameters and proved to be a promising tool to gain new insights into yeast metabolism during alcoholic fermentation.
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR Sciences pour l'oenologie, Montpellier cedex, France. clementt@supagro.inra.fr
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Clement
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Perez
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Mouret
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Sablayrolles
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Camarasa
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D019149:Bioreactors; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D002241:Carbohydrates; D005285:Fermentation; D006801:Humans; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D014920:Wine / Q000382:microbiology*; D015003:Yeasts / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates