Transcriptional profiling by RNA-seq of an evolved hyper-ethanol surviving yeast strain and a wild-type yeast strain at various stress time points

Our evolved hyper-ethanol surviving strain showed more than a 10-fold survival under lethal ethanol stress. To determine the strategies the yeast cells employed to achieve this superior survival, we performed transcriptional profiling by RNA-seq to compare the gene expression states between these two strains. Our study found that the evolved strain reprogrammed its gene expression such that its pre-stress state was shifted towards that of the wild-type strain at 15 minutes post-stress. A wild-type and an evolved hyper-ethanol surviving strain were each exposed to 2 minutes of lethal ethanol stress and slowly recovered, with samples taken for sequencing at the following time points: growth in rich media, immediately pre-stress, recovery at 15 min, 30 min, 60 min, 4 hrs.