Selected Schizosaccharomyces pombe Strains Have Characteristics That Are Beneficial for Winemaking

At present, wine is generally produced using Saccharomyces yeast followed by Oenococus bacteria to complete malolactic fermentation. This method has some unsolved problems, such as the management of highly acidic musts and the production of potentially toxic products including biogenic amines and ethyl carbamate. Here we explore the potential of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe to solve these problems. We characterise an extensive worldwide collection of S. pombe strains according to classic biochemical parameters of oenological interest. We identify three genetically different S. pombe strains that appear suitable for winemaking. These strains compare favourably to standard Saccharomyces cerevisiae winemaking strains, in that they perform effective malic acid deacidification and significantly reduce levels of biogenic amines and ethyl carbamate precursors without the need for any secondary bacterial malolactic fermentation. These findings indicate that the use of certain S. pombe strains could be advantageous for winemaking in regions where malic acid is problematic, and these strains also show superior performance with respect to food safety

Tri-, tetra- and heptacyclic perylene analogues as new potential antineoplastic agents based on DNA telomerase inhibition

A recent approach in anticancer chemotherapy envisages telomerase as a potentially useful target. An attractive strategy deals with the development of compounds able to stabilize telomeric DNA in the G-quadruplex folded structure and, among them, a prominent position is found in the perylenes. With the aim to further investigate the role of drug structure, in view of possible pharmaceutical applications, we synthesized a series of compounds related to PIPER, a well-known perylene-based telomerase inhibitor. We modified the number of condensed aromatic rings and introduced different side chains to modulate drug protonation state and extent of self-aggregation. Effective telomerase inhibition was induced by heptacyclic analogues only, some showing a remarkably wide selectivity index with reference to inhibition of Taq polymerase. G-quadruplex stabilization was monitored by circular dichroism and melting experiments. Cell cytotoxicity measurements indicated a poor short-term cell killing ability for the best G-quartet binders. Besides the presence of a planar seven-condensed ring system, the introduction of a cyclic amine in the side chains critically affects the selectivity window

Derivation of Man-1 and Man-2 research grade human embryonic stem cell lines

We report here the derivation of two new human embryonic stem cell lines, Man-1 and Man-2, and their full characterization as novel pluripotent stem cell lines. Man-1 was derived from an embryo surplus to requirement from routine IVF, while Man-2 was obtained from an oocyte classified as failed to fertilise and subsequently chemically activated. We report the characterisation of pluripotency and the differentiation potential of these lines. Work is in progress to establish novel methods of stem cell derivation and culture, which will avoid the use of xenobiotics and be relevant to clinical production of human embryonic stem cell lines. Both newly derived human embryonic stem cell lines will be available for the research community from the UK Stem Cell Bank (http://www.ukstemcellbank.org.uk)