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Rational engineering of xylanase hyper-producing system in Trichoderma reesei for efficient biomass degradation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei has been widely used as a workhorse for cellulase and xylanase productions. Xylanase has been reported as the crucial accessory enzyme in the degradation of lignocellulose for higher accessibility of cellulase. In addition, the efficient hydrolysis of xylan needs the co-work of multiple xylanolytic enzymes, which rise an increasing demand for the high yield of xylanase for efficient biomass degradation.

Results

In this study, a xylanase hyper-producing system in T. reesei was established by tailoring two transcription factors, XYR1 and ACE1, and homologous overexpression of the major endo-xylanase XYNII. The expressed xylanase cocktail contained 5256 U/mL xylanase activity and 9.25 U/mL β-xylosidase (pNPXase) activity. Meanwhile, the transcription level of the xylanolytic genes in the strain with XYR1 overexpressed was upregulated, which was well correlated with the amount of XYR1-binding sites. In addition, the higher expression of associated xylanolytic enzymes would result in more efficient xylan hydrolysis. Besides, 2310-3085 U/mL of xylanase activities were achieved using soluble carbon source, which was more efficient and economical than the traditional strategy of xylan induction. Unexpectedly, deletion of ace1 in C30OExyr1 did not give any improvement, which might be the result of the disturbed function of the complex formed between ACE1 and XYR1. The enzymatic hydrolysis of alkali pretreated corn stover using the crude xylanase cocktails as accessory enzymes resulted in a 36.64% increase in saccharification efficiency with the ratio of xylanase activity vs FPase activity at 500, compared to that using cellulase alone.

Conclusions

An efficient and economical xylanase hyper-producing platform was developed in T. reesei RUT-C30. The novel platform with outstanding ability for crude xylanase cocktail production would greatly fit in biomass degradation and give a new perspective of further engineering in T. reesei for industrial purposes.

SUBMITTER: Yan S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8033665 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundTrichoderma reesei is the preferred organism for producing industrial cellulases. However, a more efficient heterologous expression system for enzymes from different organism is needed to further improve its cellulase mixture. The strong cbh1 promoter of T. reesei is frequently used in heterologous expression, however, the carbon catabolite repressor CREI may reduce its strength by binding to the cbh1 promoter at several binding sites. Another crucial point to enhance the production of heterologous enzymes is the stability of recombinant mRNA and the prevention of protein degradation within the endoplasmic reticulum, especially for the bacteria originated enzymes.In this study, the CREI binding sites within the cbh1 promoter were replaced with the binding sites of transcription activator ACEII and the HAP2/3/5 complex to improve the promoter efficiency. To further improve heterologous expression efficiency of bacterial genes within T. reesei, a flexible polyglycine linker and a rigid α-helix linker were tested in the construction of fusion genes between cbh1 from T. reesei and e1, encoding an endoglucanase from Acidothermus cellulolyticus.ResultsThe modified promoter resulted in an increased expression level of the green fluorescent protein reporter by 5.5-fold in inducing culture medium and 7.4-fold in repressing culture medium. The fusion genes of cbh1 and e1 were successfully expressed in T. reesei under the control of promoter pcbh1m2. The higher enzyme activities and thermostability of the fusion protein with rigid linker indicated that the rigid linker might be more suitable for the heterologous expression system in T. reesei. Compared to the parent strain RC30-8, the FPase and CMCase activities of the secreted enzyme mixture from the corresponding transformant R1 with the rigid linker increased by 39% and 30% at 60°C, respectively, and the reduced sugar concentration in the hydrolysate of pretreated corn stover (PCS) was dramatically increased by 40% at 55°C and 169% at 60°C when its enzyme mixture was used in the hydrolysis.ConclusionsThis study shows that optimizations of the promoter and linker for hybrid genes can dramatically improve the efficiency of heterologous expression of cellulase genes in T. reesei.

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