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Background: Understanding the effects of oxygen levels on yeast xylose metabolism would benefit ethanol production. In this work, xylose fermentative capacity of Scheffersomyces stipitis, Spathaspora passalidarum, Spathaspora arborariae and Candida tenuis was systematically compared under aerobic, oxygen-limited and anaerobic conditions., Results: Fermentative performances of the four yeasts were greatly influenced by oxygen availability. S. stipitis and S. passalidarum showed the highest ethanol yields (above 0.44 g g -1 ) under oxygen limitation. However, S. passalidarum produced 1.5 times more ethanol than S. stipitis under anaerobiosis. While C. tenuis showed the lowest xylose consumption rate and incapacity to produce ethanol, S. arborariae showed an intermediate fermentative performance among the yeasts. NAD(P)H xylose reductase (XR) activity in crude cell extracts correlated with xylose consumption rates and ethanol production., Conclusions: Overall, the present work demonstrates that the availability of oxygen influences the production of ethanol by yeasts and indicates that the NADH-dependent XR activity is a limiting step on the xylose metabolism. S. stipitis and S. passalidarum have the greatest potential for ethanol production from xylose. Both yeasts showed similar ethanol yields near theoretical under oxygen-limited condition. Besides that, S. passalidarum showed the best xylose consumption and ethanol production under anaerobiosis.

Xylitol production was compared in fed batch fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains overexpressing xylose reductase (XR) genes from Candida tropicalis, Pichia stipitis, Neurospora crassa, and an endogenous gene GRE3. The gene encoding a xylose specific transporter (SUT1) from P. stipitis was cloned to improve xylose transport and fed batch fermentation was used with glucose as a cosubstrate to regenerate NADPH. Xylitol yield was near theoretical for all the strains in fed batch fermentation. The highest volumetric (0.28 gL -1  h -1 ) and specific (34 mgg -1  h -1 ) xylitol productivities were obtained by the strain overexpressing GRE3 gene, while the control strain showed 7.2 mgg -1  h -1 specific productivity. The recombinant strains carrying XR from C. tropicalis, P. stipitis, and N. crassa produced xylitol with lower specific productivity of 14.3, 6.8, and 6.3 mgg -1  h -1 , respectively, than GRE3 overexpressing strain. The glucose fed as cosubstrate was converted to biomass and ethanol, while xylose was only converted to xylitol. The efficiency of ethanol production was in the range of 38-45 % of the theoretical maximum for all the strains. Xylitol production from the non-detoxified corncob hemicellulosic hydrolysate by recombinant S. cerevisiae was reported for the first time. Xylitol productivity was found to be equivalent in the synthetic xylose as well as hemicellulosic hydrolysate-based media showing no inhibition on the S. cerevisiae due to the inhibitors present in the hydrolysate. A systematic evaluation of heterologous XRs and endogenous GRE3 genes was performed, and the strain overexpressing the endogenous GRE3 gene showed the best xylitol productivity.

Economical biofuel production from plant biomass requires the conversion of both cellulose and hemicellulose in the plant cell wall. The best industrial fermentation organism, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has been developed to utilize xylose by heterologously expressing either a xylose reductase/xylitol dehydrogenase (XR/XDH) pathway or a xylose isomerase (XI) pathway. Although it has been proposed that the optimal means for fermenting xylose into biofuels would use XI instead of the XR/XDH pathway, no clear comparison of the best publicly-available yeast strains engineered to use XR/XDH or XI has been published. We therefore compared two of the best-performing engineered yeast strains in the public domain-one using the XR/XDH pathway and another using XI-in anaerobic xylose fermentations. We find that, regardless of conditions, the strain using XR/XDH has substantially higher productivity compared to the XI strain. By contrast, the XI strain has better yields in nearly all conditions tested.

A metabolically engineered Escherichia coli has been constructed for the production of xylitol, one of the top 12 platform chemicals from agricultural sources identified by the US Department of Energy. An optimal plasmid was constructed to express xylose reductase from Neurospora crassa with almost no inclusion bodies at relatively high temperature. The phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent glucose phosphotransferase system (ptsG) was disrupted to eliminate catabolite repression and allow simultaneous uptake of glucose and xylose. The native pathway for D-xylose catabolism in E. coli W3110 was blocked by deleting the xylose isomerase (xylA) and xylulose kinase (xylB) genes. The putative pathway for xylitol phosphorylation was also blocked by disrupting the phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent fructose phosphotransferase system (ptsF). The xylitol producing recombinant E. coli allowed production of 172.4 g L(-1) xylitol after 110 h of fed-batch cultivation with an average productivity of 1.57 g L(-1) h(-1). The molar yield of xylitol to glucose reached approximately 2.2 (mol xylitol mol(-1) glucose). Furthermore, the recombinant strain also produced about 150 g L(-1) xylitol from hemicellulosic sugars in modified M9 minimal medium and the overall productivity was 1.40 g L(-1) h(-1), representing the highest xylitol concentration and productivity reported to date from hemicellulosic sugars using bacteria. Thus, this engineered E. coli is a candidate for the development of efficient industrial-scale production of xylitol from hemicellulosic hydrolysate., (Copyright © 2015 International Metabolic Engineering Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Rhizopus oryzae is valuable as a producer of organic acids via lignocellulose catalysis. R. oryzae metabolizes xylose, which is one component of lignocellulose hydrolysate. In this study, a novel NADPH-dependent xylose reductase gene from R. oryzae AS 3.819 (Roxr) was cloned and expressed in Pichia pastoris GS115. Homology alignment suggested that the 320-residue protein contained domains and active sites belonging to the aldo/keto reductase family. SDS-PAGE demonstrated that the recombinant xylose reductase has a molecular weight of approximately 37 kDa. The optimal catalytic pH and temperature of the purified recombinant protein were 5.8 and 50 °C, respectively. The recombinant protein was stable from pH 4.4 to 6.5 and at temperatures below 42 °C. The recombinant enzyme has bias for D-xylose and L-arabinose as substrates and NADPH as its coenzyme. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR tests suggested that native Roxr expression is regulated by a carbon catabolite repression mechanism. Site-directed mutagenesis at two possible key sites involved in coenzyme binding, Thr(226)  → Glu(226) and Val(274)  → Asn(274), were performed, respectively. The coenzyme specificity constants of the resulted RoXR(T226E) and RoXR(V274N) for NADH increased 18.2-fold and 2.4-fold, which suggested possibility to improve the NADH preference of this enzyme through genetic modification., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Background: The heterotrophic and mixotrophic culture of oleaginous microalgae is a promising process to produce biofuel feedstock due to the advantage of fast growth. Various organic carbons have been explored for this application. However, despite being one of the most abundant and economical sugar resources in nature, D-xylose has never been demonstrated as a carbon source for wild-type microalgae. The purpose of the present work was to identify the feasibility of D-xylose utilization by the oleaginous microalga Chlorella sorokiniana., Results: The sugar uptake kinetic analysis was performed with (14)C-labeled sugars and the data showed that the D-glucose induced algal cells (the alga was heterotrophically grown on D-glucose and then harvested as D-glucose induced cells) exhibited a remarkably increased D-xylose uptake rate. The maximum D-xylose transport rate was 3.8 nmol min(-1) mg(-1) dry cell weight (DCW) with K m value of 6.8 mM. D-xylose uptake was suppressed in the presence of D-glucose, D-galactose and D-fructose but not L-arabinose and D-ribose. The uptake of D-xylose activated the related metabolic pathway, and the activities of a NAD(P)H-linked xylose reductase (XR) and a unique NADP(+)-linked xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH) were detected in C. sorokiniana. Compared with the culture in the dark, the consumption of D-xylose increased 2 fold under light but decreased to the same level with addition of 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea (DCMU), indicating that extra chemical energy from the light-dependent reaction contributed the catabolism of D-xylose for C. sorokiniana., Conclusions: An inducible D-xylose transportation system and a related metabolic pathway were discovered for microalga for the first time. The transportation of D-xylose across the cell membrane of C. sorokiniana could be realized by an inducible hexose symporter. The uptake of D-xylose subsequently activated the expression of key catalytic enzymes that enabled D-xylose entering central metabolism. Results of this research are useful to better understand the D-xylose metabolic pathway in the microalga C. sorokiniana and provide a target for genetic engineering to improve D-xylose utilization for microalgal lipid production.

Conversion of lignocellulosic material to ethanol is a major challenge in second generation bio-fuel production by yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This report describes a novel strategy named "two-stage transcriptional reprogramming (TSTR)" in which key gene expression at both glucose and xylose fermentation phases is optimized in engineered S. cerevisiae. Through a combined genome-wide screening of stage-specific promoters and the balancing of the metabolic flux, ethanol yields and productivity from mixed sugars were significantly improved. In a medium containing 50g/L glucose and 50g/L xylose, the top-performing strain WXY12 rapidly consumed glucose within 12h and within 84h it consistently achieved an ethanol yield of 0.48g/g total sugar, which was 94% of the theoretical yield. WXY12 utilizes a KGD1 inducible promoter to drive xylose metabolism, resulting in much higher ethanol yield than a reference strain using a strong constitutive PGK1 promoter. These promising results validate the TSTR strategy by synthetically regulating the xylose assimilation pathway towards efficient xylose fermentation., (Crown Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

A new member of the aldo-keto reductase (AKR) superfamily with 3-dehydroecdysone reductase activity was found in the silkworm Bombyx mori upon induction by the insecticide diazinon. The amino acid sequence showed that this enzyme belongs to the AKR2 family, and the protein was assigned the systematic name AKR2E4. In this study, recombinant AKR2E4 was expressed, purified to near homogeneity, and kinetically characterized. Additionally, its ternary structure in complex with NADP(+) and citrate was refined at 1.3Å resolution to elucidate substrate binding and catalysis. The enzyme is a 33-kDa monomer and reduces dicarbonyl compounds such as isatin and 17α-hydroxy progesterone using NADPH as a cosubstrate. No NADH-dependent activity was detected. Robust activity toward the substrate inhibitor 3-dehydroecdysone was observed, which suggests that this enzyme plays a role in regulation of the important molting hormone ecdysone. This structure constitutes the first insect AKR structure determined. Bound NADPH is located at the center of the TIM- or (β/α)8-barrel, and residues involved in catalysis are conserved., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Reducing xylitol formation is necessary in engineering xylose utilization in recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae for ethanol production through xylose reductase/xylitol dehydrogenase pathway. To balance the expression of XYL1 and mutant XYL2 encoding xylose reductase (XR) and NADP(+)-dependent xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH), respectively, we utilized a strategy combining chassis selection and direct fine-tuning of XYL1 and XYL2 expression in this study. A XYL1 gene under the control of various promoters of ADH1, truncated ADH1 and PGK1, and a mutated XYL2 with different copy numbers were constructed into different xylose-utilizing modules, which were then expressed in two yeast chassises W303a and L2612. The strategy enabled an improved L2612-derived recombinant strain with XYL1 controlled by promoter PGK1 and with two copies of XYL2. The strain exhibited a 21.3% lower xylitol yield and a 40.0% higher ethanol yield. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the combinatorial strategy for construction of an efficient xylose-fermenting S. cerevisiae.

Two novel endophytic yeast strains, WP1 and PTD3, isolated from within the stems of poplar (Populus) trees, were genetically characterized with respect to their xylose metabolism genes. These two strains, belonging to the species Rhodotorula graminis and R. mucilaginosa, respectively, utilize both hexose and pentose sugars, including the common plant pentose sugar, D-xylose. The xylose reductase (XYL1) and xylitol dehydrogenase (XYL2) genes were cloned and characterized. The derived amino acid sequences of xylose reductase (XR) and xylose dehydrogenase (XDH) were 32%∼41% homologous to those of Pichia stipitis and Candida. spp., two species known to utilize xylose. The derived XR and XDH sequences of WP1 and PTD3 had higher homology (73% and 69% identity) with each other. WP1 and PTD3 were grown in single sugar and mixed sugar media to analyze the XYL1 and XYL2 gene regulation mechanisms. Our results revealed that for both strains, the gene expression is induced by D-xylose, and that in PTD3 the expression was not repressed by glucose in the presence of xylose.

The enzymatic bioconversion of xylose into xylitol by xylose reductase (XR) is an alternative for chemical and microbiological processes. The partial purified XR was obtained by using the following three procedures: an agarose column, a membrane reactor or an Amicon Ultra-15 50K Centrifugal Filter device at yields of 40%, 7% and 67%, respectively.