Dataset Information

Use of fusion transcription factors to reprogram cellulase transcription and enable efficient cellulase production in Trichoderma reesei.

ABSTRACT: Background:Trichoderma reesei is widely used for cellulase production and accepted as an example for cellulase research. Cre1-mediated carbon catabolite repression (CCR) can significantly inhibit the transcription of cellulase genes during cellulase fermentation in T. reesei. Early efforts have been undertaken to modify Cre1 for the release of CCR; however, this approach leads to arrested hyphal growth and decreased biomass accumulation, which negatively affects cellulase production. Results:In this study, novel fusion transcription factors (fTFs) were designed to release or attenuate CCR inhibition in cellulase transcription, while Cre1 was left intact to maintain normal hyphal growth. Four designed fTFs were introduced into the T. reesei genome, which generated several transformants, named Kuace3, Kuclr2, Kuace2, and Kuxyr1. No obvious differences in growth were observed between the parent and transformant strains. However, the transcription levels of cel7a, a major cellulase gene, were significantly elevated in all the transformants, particularly in Kuace2 and Kuxyr1, when grown on lactose as a carbon source. This suggested that CCR inhibition was released or attenuated in the transformant strains. The growth of Kuace2 and Kuxyr1 was approximately equivalent to that of the parent strain in fed-batch fermentation process. However, we observed a 3.2- and 2.1-fold increase in the pNPCase titers of the Kuace2 and Kuxyr1 strains, respectively, compared with that of the parent strain. Moreover, we observed a 6.1- and 3.9-fold increase in the pNPCase titers of the Kuace2 and Kuxyr1 strains, respectively, compared with that of ?cre1 strain. Conclusions:A new strategy based on fTFs was successfully established in T. reesei to improve cellulase titers without impairing fungal growth. This study will be valuable for lignocellulosic biorefining and for guiding the development of engineering strategies for producing other important biochemical compounds in fungal species.

SUBMITTER: Wang F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6792246 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Use of fusion transcription factors to reprogram cellulase transcription and enable efficient cellulase production in <i>Trichoderma reesei</i>.

Wang Fangzhong F Zhang Ruiqin R Han Lijuan L Guo Wei W Du Zhiqiang Z Niu Kangle K Liu Yucui Y Jia Chunjiang C Fang Xu X

Biotechnology for biofuels 20191015

<h4>Background</h4><i>Trichoderma reesei</i> is widely used for cellulase production and accepted as an example for cellulase research. Cre1-mediated carbon catabolite repression (CCR) can significantly inhibit the transcription of cellulase genes during cellulase fermentation in <i>T</i>. <i>reesei</i>. Early efforts have been undertaken to modify Cre1 for the release of CCR; however, this approach leads to arrested hyphal growth and decreased biomass accumulation, which negatively affects cell ...[more]

PMID: 31636703

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Project description:BackgroundThe induction of cellulase production by insoluble carbon source cellulose was a common and efficient strategy, but has some drawbacks, such as difficult fermentation operation, substantial cellulase loss, long fermentation time, and high energy-consumption, resulting in high cost of cellulase production in industry. These drawbacks can be overcome if soluble carbon sources are utilized as the inducers for cellulase production. However, until now the induction efficiency of most soluble carbon sources, especially lactose and glucose, is still inferior to cellulose despite extensive efforts have been made by either optimizing the fermentation process or constructing the recombinant strains. Therefore, strain improvement by metabolic engineering for high induction efficiency of soluble carbon sources is of great interest.ResultsTrichoderma reesei mutant SEU-7 was constructed from T. reesei RUT-C30 with the overexpression of endogenous gene β-glucosidase (BGL1) by insertional mutagenesis via Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (AMT). Compared to RUT-C30, SEU-7 displays substantially enhanced activities of both cellulase and hemicellulase when grown on either lactose or cellulose. The induction efficiency with lactose was found to be higher than cellulose in strain SEU-7. To the best of our knowledge, we achieved the highest FPase activity in SEU-7 in both batch culture (13.0 IU/mL) and fed-batch culture (47.0 IU/mL) on lactose. Moreover, SEU-7 displayed unrivaled pNPGase activity on lactose in both batch culture (81.0 IU/mL) and fed-batch culture (144.0 IU/mL) as compared to the other reported T. reesei strains in the literature grown in batch or fed-batch experiments on cellulose or lactose. This superiority of SEU-7 over RUT-C30 improves markedly the saccharification ability of SEU-7 on pretreated corn stover. The overexpression of gene BGL1 was found either at the mRNA or at the protein level in the mutant strains with increased cellulase production in comparison with RUT-C30, but only SEU-7 displayed much higher expression of gene BGL1 on lactose than on cellulose. Two copies of gene BGL1 were inserted into the chromosome of T. reesei SEU-7 between KI911141.1:347357 and KI911141.1:347979, replacing the original 623-bp fragment that is not within any genes' coding region. The qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the mRNA levels of both cellulase and hemicellulase were upregulated significantly in SEU-7, together with the MFS transporter CRT1 and the XYR1 nuclear importer KAP8.ConclusionsRecombinant T. reesei SEU-7 displays hyper-production of both cellulase and hemicellulase on lactose with the highest FPase activity and pNPGase activity for T. reesei, enabling highly efficient saccharification of pretreated biomass. For the first time, the induction efficiency for cellulase production by lactose in T. reesei was reported to be higher than that by cellulose. This outperformance of T. reesei SEU-7, which is strain-specific, is attributed to both the overexpression of gene BGL and the collateral mutation. Moreover, the increased transcription levels of cellulase genes, the related transcription factors, and the MFS transporter CRT1 contribute to the outstanding cellulase production of SEU-7. Our research advances strain improvement to enhance the induction efficiency of soluble carbon sources to produce cost-effective cellulase and hemicellulase in industry.

Project description:BackgroundCellulolytic enzymes produced by the filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei are commonly used in biomass conversion. The high cost of cellulase is still a significant challenge to commercial biofuel production. Improving cellulase production in T. reesei for application in the cellulosic biorefinery setting is an urgent priority.ResultsTrichoderma reesei hyper-cellulolytic mutant SS-II derived from the T. reesei NG14 strain exhibited faster growth rate and more efficient lignocellulosic biomass degradation than those of RUT-C30, another hyper-cellulolytic strain derived from NG14. To identify any genetic changes that occurred in SS-II, we sequenced its genome using Illumina MiSeq. In total, 184 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 40 insertions and deletions were identified. SS-II sequencing revealed 107 novel mutations and a full-length wild-type carbon catabolite repressor 1 gene (cre1). To combine the mutations of RUT-C30 and SS-II, the sequence of one confirmed beneficial mutation in RUT-C30, cre196, was introduced in SS-II to replace full-length cre1, forming the mutant SS-II-cre196. The total cellulase production of SS-II-cre196 was decreased owing to the limited growth of SS-II-cre196. In contrast, 57 genes mutated only in SS-II were selected and knocked out in RUT-C30. Of these, 31 were involved in T. reesei growth or cellulase production. Cellulase activity was significantly increased in five deletion strains compared with that in two starter strains, RUT-C30 and SS-II. Cellulase production of T. reesei Δ108642 and Δ56839 was significantly increased by 83.7% and 70.1%, respectively, compared with that of RUT-C30. The amount of glucose released from pretreated corn stover hydrolyzed by the crude enzyme from Δ108642 increased by 11.9%.ConclusionsThe positive attribute confirmed in one cellulase hyper-producing strain does not always work efficiently in another cellulase hyper-producing strain, owing to the differences in genetic background. Genome re-sequencing revealed novel mutations that might affect cellulase production and other pathways indirectly related to cellulase formation. Our strategy of combining the mutations of two strains successfully identified a number of interesting phenotypes associated with cellulase production. These findings will contribute to the creation of a gene library that can be used to investigate the involvement of various genes in the regulation of cellulase production.

Project description:Background:The enzymes for efficient hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass are a major factor in the development of an economically feasible cellulose bioconversion process. Up to now, low hydrolysis efficiency and high production cost of cellulases remain the significant hurdles in this process. The aim of the present study was to develop a versatile cellulase system with the enhanced hydrolytic efficiency and the ability to synthesize powerful inducers by genetically engineering Trichoderma reesei. Results:In our study, we employed a systematic genetic strategy to construct the carbon catabolite-derepressed strain T. reesei SCB18 to produce the cellulase complex that exhibited a strong cellulolytic capacity for biomass saccharification and an extraordinary high ?-glucosidase (BGL) activity for cellulase-inducing disaccharides synthesis. We first identified the hypercellulolytic and uracil auxotrophic strain T. reesei SP4 as carbon catabolite repressed, and then deleted the carbon catabolite repressor gene cre1 in the genome. We found that the deletion of cre1 with the selectable marker pyrG led to a 72.6% increase in total cellulase activity, but a slight reduction in saccharification efficiency. To facilitate the following genetic modification, the marker pyrG was successfully removed by homologous recombination based on resistance to 5-FOA. Furthermore, the Aspergillus niger BGLA-encoding gene bglA was overexpressed, and the generated strain T. reesei SCB18 exhibited a 29.8% increase in total cellulase activity and a 51.3-fold enhancement in BGL activity (up to 103.9 IU/mL). We observed that the cellulase system of SCB18 showed significantly higher saccharification efficiency toward differently pretreated corncob residues than the control strains SDC11 and SP4. Moreover, the crude enzyme preparation from SCB18 with high BGL activity possessed strong transglycosylation ability to synthesize ?-disaccharides from glucose. The transglycosylation product was finally utilized as the inducer for cellulase production, which provided a 63.0% increase in total cellulase activity compared to the frequently used soluble inducer, lactose. Conclusions:In summary, we constructed a versatile cellulase system in T. reesei for efficient biomass saccharification and powerful cellulase inducer synthesis by combinational genetic manipulation of three distinct types of genes to achieve the customized cellulase production, thus providing a viable strategy for further strain improvement to reduce the cost of biomass-based biofuel production.

Project description:BackgroundThe soft rot ascomycetal fungus Trichoderma reesei is utilized for industrial production of secreted enzymes, especially lignocellulose degrading enzymes. T. reesei uses several different enzymes for the degradation of plant cell wall-derived material, including 9 characterized cellulases, 15 characterized hemicellulases and at least 42 genes predicted to encode cellulolytic or hemicellulolytic activities. Production of cellulases and hemicellulases is modulated by environmental and physiological conditions. Several regulators affecting the expression of cellulase and hemicellulase genes have been identified but more factors still unknown are believed to be present in the genome of T. reesei.ResultsWe have used transcriptional profiling data from T. reesei cultures in which cellulase/hemicellulase production was induced by the addition of different lignocellulose-derived materials to identify putative novel regulators for cellulase and hemicellulase genes. Based on this induction data, supplemented with other published genome-wide data on different protein production conditions, 28 candidate regulatory genes were selected for further studies and they were overexpressed in T. reesei. Overexpression of seven genes led to at least 1.5-fold increased production of cellulase and/or xylanase activity in the modified strains as compared to the parental strain. Deletion of gene 77513, here designated as ace3, was found to be detrimental for cellulase production and for the expression of several cellulase genes studied. This deletion also significantly reduced xylanase activity and expression of xylan-degrading enzyme genes. Furthermore, our data revealed the presence of co-regulated chromosomal regions containing carbohydrate-active enzyme genes and candidate regulatory genes.ConclusionsTranscriptional profiling results from glycoside hydrolase induction experiments combined with a previous study of specific protein production conditions was shown to be an effective method for finding novel candidate regulatory genes affecting the production of cellulases and hemicellulases. Recombinant strains with improved cellulase and/or xylanase production properties were constructed, and a gene essential for cellulase gene expression was found. In addition, more evidence was gained on the chromatin level regional regulation of carbohydrate-active enzyme gene expression.

Dataset Information

Use of fusion transcription factors to reprogram cellulase transcription and enable efficient cellulase production in Trichoderma reesei.

Publications

Use of fusion transcription factors to reprogram cellulase transcription and enable efficient cellulase production in <i>Trichoderma reesei</i>.

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