scholarly journals Directed Evolution of Xylose Isomerase for Improved Xylose Catabolism and Fermentation in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

2012 ◽  
Vol 78 (16) ◽  
pp. 5708-5716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sun-Mi Lee ◽  
Taylor Jellison ◽  
Hal S. Alper

ABSTRACTThe heterologous expression of a highly functional xylose isomerase pathway inSaccharomyces cerevisiaewould have significant advantages for ethanol yield, since the pathway bypasses cofactor requirements found in the traditionally used oxidoreductase pathways. However, nearly all reported xylose isomerase-based pathways inS. cerevisiaesuffer from poor ethanol productivity, low xylose consumption rates, and poor cell growth compared with an oxidoreductase pathway and, additionally, often require adaptive strain evolution. Here, we report on the directed evolution of thePiromycessp. xylose isomerase (encoded byxylA) for use in yeast. After three rounds of mutagenesis and growth-based screening, we isolated a variant containing six mutations (E15D, E114G, E129D, T142S, A177T, and V433I) that exhibited a 77% increase in enzymatic activity. When expressed in a minimally engineered yeast host containing agre3knockout andtal1andXKS1overexpression, the strain expressing this mutant enzyme improved its aerobic growth rate by 61-fold and both ethanol production and xylose consumption rates by nearly 8-fold. Moreover, the mutant enzyme enabled ethanol production by these yeasts under oxygen-limited fermentation conditions, unlike the wild-type enzyme. Under microaerobic conditions, the ethanol production rates of the strain expressing the mutant xylose isomerase were considerably higher than previously reported values for yeast harboring a xylose isomerase pathway and were also comparable to those of the strains harboring an oxidoreductase pathway. Consequently, this study shows the potential to evolve a xylose isomerase pathway for more efficient xylose utilization.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung-Hoon Bae ◽  
Mi-Jin Kim ◽  
Bong Hyun Sung ◽  
Yong-Su Jin ◽  
Jung-Hoon Sohn

Abstract Background Xylose contained in lignocellulosic biomass is an attractive carbon substrate for economically viable conversion to bioethanol. Extensive research has been conducted on xylose fermentation using recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing xylose isomerase (XI) and xylose reductase/xylitol dehydrogenase (XR/XDH) pathways along with the introduction of a xylose transporter and amplification of the downstream pathway. However, the low utilization of xylose in the presence of glucose, due to the varying preference for cellular uptake, is a lingering challenge. Studies so far have mainly focused on xylose utilization inside the cells, but there have been little trials on the conversion of xylose to xylulose by cell before uptake. We hypothesized that the extracellular conversion of xylose to xylulose before uptake would facilitate better utilization of xylose even in the presence of glucose. To verify this, XI from Piromyces sp. was engineered and hyper-secreted in S. cerevisiae for the extracellular conversion of xylose to xylulose. Results The optimal pH of XI was lowered from 7.0 to 5.0 by directed evolution to ensure its high activity under the acidic conditions used for yeast fermentation, and hyper-secretion of an engineered XI-76 mutant (E56A and I252M) was accomplished by employing target protein-specific translational fusion partners. The purified XI-76 showed twofold higher activity than that of the wild type at pH 5. The secretory expression of XI-76 in the previously developed xylose utilizing yeast strain, SR8 increased xylose consumption and ethanol production by approximately 7–20% and 15–20% in xylose fermentation and glucose and xylose co-fermentation, respectively. Conclusions Isomerisation of xylose to xylulose before uptake using extracellular XI was found to be effective in xylose fermentation or glucose/xylose co-fermentation. This suggested that glucose competed less with xylulose than with xylose for uptake by the cell. Consequently, the engineered XI secretion system constructed in this study can pave the way for simultaneous utilization of C5/C6 sugars from the sustainable lignocellulosic biomass.


Fermentation ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingting Liu ◽  
Shuangcheng Huang ◽  
Anli Geng

Cost-effective production of cellulosic ethanol requires robust microorganisms for rapid co-fermentation of glucose and xylose. This study aims to develop a recombinant diploid xylose-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain for efficient conversion of lignocellulosic biomass sugars to ethanol. Episomal plasmids harboring codon-optimized Piromyces sp. E2 xylose isomerase (PirXylA) and Orpinomyces sp. ukk1 xylose (OrpXylA) genes were constructed and transformed into S. cerevisiae. The strain harboring plasmids with tandem PirXylA was favorable for xylose utilization when xylose was used as the sole carbon source, while the strain harboring plasmids with tandem OrpXylA was beneficial for glucose and xylose cofermentation. PirXylA and OrpXylA genes were also individually integrated into the genome of yeast strains in multiple copies. Such integration was beneficial for xylose alcoholic fermentation. The respiration-deficient strain carrying episomal or integrated OrpXylA genes exhibited the best performance for glucose and xylose co-fermentation. This was partly attributed to the high expression levels and activities of xylose isomerase. Mating a respiration-efficient strain carrying the integrated PirXylA gene with a respiration-deficient strain harboring integrated OrpXylA generated a diploid recombinant xylose-fermenting yeast strain STXQ with enhanced cell growth and xylose fermentation. Co-fermentation of 162 g L−1 glucose and 95 g L−1 xylose generated 120.6 g L−1 ethanol in 23 h, with sugar conversion higher than 99%, ethanol yield of 0.47 g g−1, and ethanol productivity of 5.26 g L−1·h−1.


2021 ◽  
Vol 87 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Li ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
Ya-Jing Wu ◽  
Zi-Yuan Xia ◽  
Bai-Xue Yang ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Acetic acid and furfural are the two prevalent inhibitors coexisting with glucose and xylose in lignocellulosic hydrolysate. The transcriptional regulations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in response to acetic acid (Aa), furfural (Fur), and the mixture of acetic acid and furfural (Aa_Fur) were revealed during mixed glucose and xylose fermentation. Carbohydrate metabolism pathways were significantly enriched in response to Aa, while pathways of xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism were significantly enriched in response to Fur. In addition to these pathways, other pathways were activated in response to Aa_Fur, i.e., cofactor and vitamin metabolism and lipid metabolism. Overexpression of Haa1p or Tye7p improved xylose consumption rates by nearly 50%, while the ethanol yield was enhanced by nearly 8% under acetic acid and furfural stress conditions. Co-overexpression of Haa1p and Tye7p resulted in a 59% increase in xylose consumption rate and a 12% increase in ethanol yield, revealing the beneficial effects of Haa1p and Tye7p on improving the tolerance of yeast to mixed acetic acid and furfural. IMPORTANCE Inhibitor tolerance is essential for S. cerevisiae when fermenting lignocellulosic hydrolysate with various inhibitors, including weak acids, furans, and phenols. The details regarding how xylose-fermenting S. cerevisiae strains respond to multiple inhibitors during fermenting mixed glucose and xylose are still unknown. This study revealed the transcriptional regulation mechanism of an industrial xylose-fermenting S. cerevisiae strain in response to acetic acid and furfural. The transcription factor Haa1p was found to be involved in both acetic acid and furfural tolerance. In addition to Haa1p, four other transcription factors, Hap4p, Yox1p, Tye7p, and Mga1p, were identified as able to improve the resistance of yeast to these two inhibitors. This study underscores the feasibility of uncovering effective transcription factors for constructing robust strains for lignocellulosic bioethanol production.


Catalysts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thais Milessi-Esteves ◽  
Felipe Corradini ◽  
Willian Kopp ◽  
Teresa Zangirolami ◽  
Paulo Tardioli ◽  
...  

Many approaches have been considered aimed at ethanol production from the hemicellulosic fraction of biomass. However, the industrial implementation of this process has been hindered by some bottlenecks, one of the most important being the ease of contamination of the bioreactor by bacteria that metabolize xylose. This work focuses on overcoming this problem through the fermentation of xylulose (the xylose isomer) by native Saccharomyces cerevisiae using xylo-oligomers as substrate. A new concept of biocatalyst is proposed, containing xylanases and xylose isomerase (XI) covalently immobilized on chitosan, and co-encapsulated with industrial baker’s yeast in Ca-alginate gel spherical particles. Xylo-oligomers are hydrolyzed, xylose is isomerized, and finally xylulose is fermented to ethanol, all taking place simultaneously, in a process called simultaneous hydrolysis, isomerization, and fermentation (SHIF). Among several tested xylanases, Multifect CX XL A03139 was selected to compose the biocatalyst bead. Influences of pH, Ca2+, and Mg2+ concentrations on the isomerization step were assessed. Experiments of SHIF using birchwood xylan resulted in an ethanol yield of 0.39 g/g, (76% of the theoretical), selectivity of 3.12 gethanol/gxylitol, and ethanol productivity of 0.26 g/L/h.


BioResources ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1358-1372
Author(s):  
Wei-Lin Tu ◽  
Tien-Yang Ma ◽  
Chung-Mao Ou ◽  
Gia-Luen Guo ◽  
Yu Chao

Lignocellulosic ethanol production at high temperature offers advantages such as the decrease of contamination risk and cooling cost. Recombinant xylose-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been considered a promising strain for ethanol production from lignocellulose for its high inhibitor tolerance and superior capability to ferment glucose and xylose into ethanol. To improve the ethanolic fermentation by xylose at high temperature, the strain YY5A was subjected to the ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis. A mutant strain T5 was selected from the EMS-treated cultures to produce ethanol. However, the xylose uptake by T5 was severely inhibited by the high ethanol concentration during the co-fermentation in defined YPDX medium at 40 °C. In this study, the simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF) and the separate hydrolysis and co-fermentation (SHCF) processes of sugarcane bagasse were assessed to solve this problem. The xylose utilization by T5 was remarkably improved using the SSCF process compared to the SHCF process. For the SHCF and SSCF processes, 48% and 99% of the xylose in the hydrolysate was consumed at 40 °C, respectively. The ethanol yield was enhanced by the SSCF process. The ethanol production can reach to 36.0 g/L using this process under high-temperature conditions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 79 (10) ◽  
pp. 3193-3201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na Wei ◽  
Haiqing Xu ◽  
Soo Rin Kim ◽  
Yong-Su Jin

ABSTRACTAccumulation of xylitol in xylose fermentation with engineeredSaccharomyces cerevisiaepresents a major problem that hampers economically feasible production of biofuels from cellulosic plant biomass. In particular, substantial production of xylitol due to unbalanced redox cofactor usage by xylose reductase (XR) and xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH) leads to low yields of ethanol. While previous research focused on manipulating intracellular enzymatic reactions to improve xylose metabolism, this study demonstrated a new strategy to reduce xylitol formation and increase carbon flux toward target products by controlling the process of xylitol secretion. Using xylitol-producingS. cerevisiaestrains expressing XR only, we determined the role of aquaglyceroporin Fps1p in xylitol export by characterizing extracellular and intracellular xylitol. In addition, whenFPS1was deleted in a poorly xylose-fermenting strain with unbalanced XR and XDH activities, the xylitol yield was decreased by 71% and the ethanol yield was substantially increased by nearly four times. Experiments with our optimized xylose-fermenting strain also showed thatFPS1deletion reduced xylitol production by 21% to 30% and increased ethanol yields by 3% to 10% under various fermentation conditions. Deletion ofFPS1decreased the xylose consumption rate under anaerobic conditions, but the effect was not significant in fermentation at high cell density. Deletion ofFPS1resulted in higher intracellular xylitol concentrations but did not significantly change the intracellular NAD+/NADH ratio in xylose-fermenting strains. The results demonstrate that Fps1p is involved in xylitol export inS. cerevisiaeand present a new gene deletion target,FPS1, and a mechanism different from those previously reported to engineer yeast for improved xylose fermentation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengqiang Wang ◽  
Jianzhi Zhao ◽  
Chenxi Qiu ◽  
Shihao Wang ◽  
Yu Shen ◽  
...  

Efficient and cost-effective fuel ethanol production from lignocellulosic materials requires simultaneous cofermentation of all hydrolyzed sugars, mainly including D-glucose, D-xylose, and L-arabinose. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a traditional D-glucose fermenting strain and could utilize D-xylose and L-arabinose after introducing the initial metabolic pathways. The efficiency and simultaneous coutilization of the two pentoses and D-glucose for ethanol production in S. cerevisiae still need to be optimized. Previously, we constructed an L-arabinose-utilizing S. cerevisiae BSW3AP. In this study, we further introduced the XI and XR-XDH metabolic pathways of D-xylose into BSW3AP to obtain D-glucose, D-xylose, and L-arabinose cofermenting strain. Benefits of evolutionary engineering: the resulting strain BSW4XA3 displayed a simultaneous coutilization of D-xylose and L-arabinose with similar consumption rates, and the D-glucose metabolic capacity was not decreased. After 120 h of fermentation on mixed D-glucose, D-xylose, and L-arabinose, BSW4XA3 consumed 24% more amounts of pentoses and the ethanol yield of mixed sugars was increased by 30% than that of BSW3AP. The resulting strain BSW4XA3 was a useful chassis for further enhancing the coutilization efficiency of mixed sugars for bioethanol production.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong-Shui Tan ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
Ying-Ying Wang ◽  
Qi-En He ◽  
Zhi-Hua Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background As the second most abundant polysaccharide in nature, hemicellulose can be degraded to xylose as the feedstock for bioconversion to fuels and chemicals. To enhance xylose conversion, the engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae with xylose metabolic pathway is usually adapted with xylose as the carbon source in the laboratory. However, the mechanism under the adaptation phenomena of the engineered strain is still unclear. Results In this study, xylose-utilizing S. cerevisiae was constructed and used for the adaptation study. It was found that xylose consumption rate increased 1.24-fold in the second incubation of the yYST12 strain in synthetic complete-xylose medium compared with the first incubation. The study figured out that it was observed at the single-cell level that the stagnation time for xylose utilization was reduced after adaptation with xylose medium in the microfluidic device. Such transient memory of xylose metabolism after adaptation with xylose medium, named “xylose consumption memory”, was observed in the strains with both xylose isomerase pathway and xylose reductase and xylitol dehydrogenase pathways. In further, the proteomic acetylation of the strains before and after adaptation was investigated, and it was revealed that H4K5 was one of the most differential acetylation sites related to xylose consumption memory of engineered S. cerevisiae. We tested 8 genes encoding acetylase or deacetylase, and it was found that the knockout of the GCN5 and HPA2 encoding acetylases enhanced the xylose consumption memory. Conclusions The behavior of xylose consumption memory in engineered S. cerevisiae can be successfully induced with xylose in the adaptation. H4K5Ac and two genes of GCN5 and HPA2 are related to xylose consumption memory of engineered S. cerevisiae during adaptation. This study provides valuable insights into the xylose adaptation of engineered S. cerevisiae.


Fermentation ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Huezo ◽  
Ajay Shah ◽  
Frederick Michel

Previous studies have shown that pretreatment of corn slurries using ultrasound improves starch release and ethanol yield during biofuel production. However, studies on its effects on the mass transfer of substrates and products during fermentation have shown that it can have both beneficial and inhibitory effects. In this study, the effects of ultrasound on mass transfer limitations during fermentation were examined. Calculation of the external and intraparticle observable moduli under a range of conditions indicate that no external or intraparticle mass transfer limitations should exist for the mass transfer of glucose, ethanol, or carbon dioxide. Fermentations of glucose to ethanol using Saccharomyces cerevisiae were conducted at different ultrasound intensities to examine its effects on glucose uptake, ethanol production, and yeast population and viability. Four treatments were compared: direct ultrasound at intensities of 23 and 32 W/L, indirect ultrasound (1.4 W/L), and no-ultrasound. Direct and indirect ultrasound had negative effects on yeast performance and viability, and reduced the rates of glucose uptake and ethanol production. These results indicate that ultrasound during fermentation, at the levels applied, is inhibitory and not expected to improve mass transfer limitations.


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