ABSTRACTThe recombinant xylose-fermentingSaccharomyces cerevisiaestrain harboring xylose reductase (XR) and xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH) fromScheffersomyces stipitisrequires NADPH and NAD+, creates cofactor imbalance, and causes xylitol accumulation during growth ond-xylose. To solve this problem,noxE, encoding a water-forming NADH oxidase fromLactococcus lactisdriven by thePGK1promoter, was introduced into the xylose-utilizing yeast strain KAM-3X. A cofactor microcycle was set up between the utilization of NAD+by XDH and the formation of NAD+by water-forming NADH oxidase. Overexpression ofnoxEsignificantly decreased xylitol formation and increased final ethanol production during xylose fermentation. Under xylose fermentation conditions with an initiald-xylose concentration of 50 g/liter, the xylitol yields for of KAM-3X(pPGK1-noxE) and control strain KAM-3X were 0.058 g/g xylose and 0.191 g/g, respectively, which showed a 69.63% decrease owing tonoxEoverexpression; the ethanol yields were 0.294 g/g for KAM-3X(pPGK1-noxE) and 0.211 g/g for the control strain KAM-3X, which indicated a 39.33% increase due tonoxEoverexpression. At the same time, the glycerol yield also was reduced by 53.85% on account of the decrease in the NADH pool caused by overexpression ofnoxE.
Overexpression of a Water-Forming NADH Oxidase Improves the Metabolism and Stress Tolerance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in Aerobic Fermentation