Does Game Theory Predict Well for the Wrong Reasons: An Experimental Investigation

game theory

Functional expression and characterization of five wax ester synthases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and their utility for biodiesel production

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Wax ester synthases (WSs) can synthesize wax esters from alcohols and fatty acyl coenzyme A thioesters. The knowledge of the preferred substrates for each WS allows the use of yeast cells for the production of wax esters that are high-value materials and can be used in a variety of industrial applications. The products of WSs include fatty acid ethyl esters, which can be directly used as biodiesel.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, heterologous WSs derived from five different organisms were successfully expressed and evaluated for their substrate preference in <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</it>. We investigated the potential of the different WSs for biodiesel (that is, fatty acid ethyl esters) production in <it>S. cerevisiae</it>. All investigated WSs, from <it>Acinetobacter baylyi </it>ADP1, <it>Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus </it>DSM 8798, <it>Rhodococcus opacus </it>PD630, <it>Mus musculus </it>C57BL/6 and <it>Psychrobacter arcticus </it>273-4, have different substrate specificities, but they can all lead to the formation of biodiesel. The best biodiesel producing strain was found to be the one expressing WS from <it>M. hydrocarbonoclasticus </it>DSM 8798 that resulted in a biodiesel titer of 6.3 mg/L. To further enhance biodiesel production, acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase was up-regulated, which resulted in a 30% increase in biodiesel production.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Five WSs from different species were functionally expressed and their substrate preference characterized in <it>S. cerevisiae</it>, thus constructing cell factories for the production of specific kinds of wax ester. WS from <it>M. hydrocarbonoclasticus </it>showed the highest preference for ethanol compared to the other WSs, and could permit the engineered <it>S. cerevisiae </it>to produce biodiesel.</p

Production of mannosylglycerate in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by metabolic engineering and bioprocess optimization

Mannosylglycerate (MG) is one of the most widespread compatible solutes among marine microorganisms adapted to hot environments. This ionic solute holds excellent ability to protect proteins against thermal denaturation, hence a large number of biotechnological and clinical applications have been put forward. However, the current prohibitive production costs impose severe constraints towards large-scale applications. All known microbial producers synthesize MG from GDP-mannose and 3-phosphoglycerate via a two-step pathway in which mannosyl-3-phosphoglycerate is the intermediate metabolite. In an early work, this pathway was expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae with the goal to confirm gene function (Empadinhas et al. in J Bacteriol 186:4075--4084, 2004), but the level of MG accumulation was low. Therefore, in view of the potential biotechnological value of this compound, we decided to invest further effort to convert S. cerevisiae into an efficient cell factory for MG production.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684), BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020—Programa Operacional Regional do Norte and also by project LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-007660 (Microbiologia Molecular, Estrutural e Celular) funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020—Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI). Cristiana Faria was supported by a Ph.D. Grant from FCT (Ref. SFRH/ BD/79552/2011).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Expectation Formation in Step-Level Public Good Games

This paper focuses on the process of individual expectation formation. Specifically, the question is addressed whether individuals think strategically when they form their beliefs about other players' behavior. Most belief learning models assume that people abstract from strategic considerations. Using an incentive compatible mechanism, experimental data are obtained on subjects' expectations in a step-level public good game and in a game against nature. The evidence is consistent with predictions derived from a general representative of belief learning models: the naive Bayesian model. By modeling the updating process used by experimental subjects, we are also able to study the structure of the errors they make and the rate of updating. We find no evidence of primacy or recency in our data but do observe significant differences across subjects in the error structure