Metabolic and genetic engineering of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae industrial strain for transport and co-fermentation of xylose and cellobiose to inprove the ethanol production process from sugarcane bagasse

• Grant number: 18/25898-3
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): July 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Biochemistry of Microorganisms
• Principal researcher: Roberto do Nascimento Silva
• Grantee: Karoline Maria Vieira Nogueira
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

One of the challenges to the economic viability of ethanol produced from lignocellulosic biomass (2G ethanol) is in the fermentation stage. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is widely used in Brazilian plants for the production of 1G ethanol. However, for this yeast be employed with success in producing large volume of 2G ethanol is necessary to expand the use of different carbon sources, including pentoses (such as xylose ), present in the lignocellulosic biomass. Besides this yeast not being able to ferment pentoses, in S. cerevisiae, glucose repression caused by the consumption of high concentration of this sugar during the fermentation process results in the inhibition of other metabolic pathways involved in the use of different carbon sources. One of the promising mechanisms for circumventing glucose repression and providing the simultaneous use of different carbon sources is the consumption of cellobiose by the yeast. However, this yeast is not able to metabolize xylose and cellobiose, besides not having the genes coding for specific transporters of these sugars in its genome. In order to build strains to transport and metabolism of D-xylose and cellobiose, this project will use the S. cerevisiae MEC 1133 as background to introduce genes encoding the Tr_69957 transporter from Trichoderma reesei and an intracellular ²-glucosidase from Neurospora crassa. The strain S. cerevisiae MEC 1133 was engineered for xylose metabolism and developed using the S. cerevisiae strain PE-2 - widely used in Brazilian ethanol plants - as background. With this, we intend to obtain a higher yield strain of ethanol production obtained from sugarcane bagasse hydrolyzate. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

CONTATO, ALEX GRACA; DE OLIVEIRA, TASSIO BRITO; ARANHA, GUILHERME MAURO; DE FREITAS, EMANUELLE NEIVERTH; VICI, ANA CLAUDIA; VIEIRA NOGUEIRA, KAROLINE MARIA; DE LUCAS, ROSYMAR COUTINHO; DE ALMEIDA SCARCELLA, ANA SILVIA; BUCKERIDGE, MARCOS SILVEIRA; SILVA, ROBERTO NASCIMENTO; TEIXEIRA DE MORAES POLIZELI, MARIA DE LOURDES. Prospection of Fungal Lignocellulolytic Enzymes Produced from Jatoba (Hymenaea courbaril) and Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) Seeds: Scaling for Bioreactor and Saccharification Profile of Sugarcane Bagasse. MICROORGANISMS, v. 9, n. 3 MAR 2021. Web of Science Citations: 0.

VIEIRA NOGUEIRA, KAROLINE MARIA; MENDES, VANESSA; CARRARO, CLAUDIA BATISTA; TAVEIRA, IASMIN CARTAXO; OSHIQUIRI, LETICIA HARUMI; GUPTA, VIJAI K.; SILVA, ROBERTO N. Sugar transporters from industrial fungi: Key to improving second-generation ethanol production. RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS, v. 131, OCT 2020. Web of Science Citations: 6.