| Grant number: | 14/11733-1 |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation |
| Start date: | August 01, 2014 |
| End date: | September 30, 2016 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Genetics - Molecular Genetics and Genetics of Microorganisms |
| Principal Investigator: | Juliana Velasco de Castro Oliveira |
| Grantee: | Eliane Silva de Santana |
| Host Institution: | Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais (CNPEM). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). Campinas , SP, Brazil |
Abstract The dependence on fossil fuel sources as well as the concern about the environment has generated a worldwide interest in establishing new sources of fuel and energy. Brazil is currently the world's second largest producer of ethanol manufactured from the fermentation of sugar cane juice. However, several studies suggest that the further use of bagasse and straw could double the Brazilian production per hectare, which is known as the second generation of ethanol (2G). The use of this additional biomass presents a challenge, mainly due the degradation of the plant cell wall and the pentoses fermentation. The most important microorganism for ethanol production, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is not able to use xylose as a sole carbon source for growth or fermentation. The first step of the fermentation process is the uptake of sugars. However, S. cerevisiae does not have specific xylose transporters; therefore this sugar is transported by non-specific hexose transporters with poor affinity for xylose. In previous studies, our research group has identified a new species of yeast, Pseudozyma brasiliensis, which is able to grow and achieve high optical densities using xylan and / or xylose as carbon source, suggesting that this species has good pentose transporters. This project aims to study in more detail five transporters up-expressed in P. brasiliensis grown on xylan and xylose, identified by a previous analysis of RNAseq performed by our group. For this purpose, we will analyze the expression of those genes when this yeast is growing at different variety of sugars concentrations, by real-time PCR. Additionally, one goal is to express heterologous the most interesting transporter in S. cerevisiae EBY.VW400 and verify its phenotypic characteristics. Because one of the bottlenecks in the second generation ethanol production is the transport of xylose, this project can identify good candidates of transporters to the genetic engineering of industrial strains. (AU) | |
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