Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is a promising candidate for biomass ethanol production, is unable to metabolize xylose. Although heterologous expression of xylose isomerase (XI) enables to endow S. cerevisiae with the ability to utilize xylose, only a few XI genes have been functionally expressed in S. cerevisiae. We successfully cloned a novel class of XI genes from protists resident in termite hindgut. Amino acid sequences encoded by these genes have low sequence similarities to already known XIs. One of these genes was functional in S. cerevisiae with high XI activity. Remarkably, the Km value of the novel XI is much lower than that of the XI from Piromyces sp. strain E2. The recombinant yeast strain which introduced the novel XI gene could grow on xylose faster than the strain harboring XI gene from Piromyces. Furthermore, the recombinant strain produced ethanol from a mixture of glucose and xylose with high yield.

Functional expression and characterization of a novel xylose isomerase in <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>

243rd National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.

Functional expression and characterization of a novel xylose isomerase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae