Reactive oxygen species (ROS) contribute to the development of chronic ethanol-induced liver injury. Although ROS modulate the activity of many signal transduction pathways, the molecular targets of ROS during ethanol exposure are not well understood. Here, we investigated whether specific ROS-sensitive signal transduction pathways contribute to increased tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production ...

The influences of glucose concentration, initial medium acidity (pH), and temperature on the growth and ethanol production of Saccharomyces cerevisiae NK28, which was isolated from kiwi fruit, were examined in shake flask cultures. The optimal glucose concentration, initial medium pH, and temperature for ethanol production were 200 g/l, pH 6.0, and 35oC, respectively. Under this growth conditio...

BACKGROUND Environmental issues, such as the fossil energy crisis, have resulted in increased public attention to use bioethanol as an alternative renewable energy. For ethanol production, water and nutrient consumption has become increasingly important factors being considered by the bioethanol industry as reducing the consumption of these resources would decrease the overall cost of ethanol p...

BACKGROUND The availability of feedstock options is a key to meeting the volumetric requirement of 136.3 billion liters of renewable fuels per year beginning in 2022, as required in the US 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of sorghum-based ethanol need to be assessed for sorghum to play a role in meeting that requirement. RESULTS Multiple sor...

BACKGROUND Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) is a well-known pathway for ethanol production, but has not been demonstrated for high titer ethanol production at temperatures above 50 °C. RESULT Here we examined the thermostability of eight PDCs. The purified bacterial enzymes retained 20% of activity after incubation for 30 min at 55 °C. Expression of these PDC genes, except the one from Zymomonas ...

Phytochemicals have been known to exhibit potent antioxidant activity. This study examined cytoprotective effects of phytochemicals including quercetin, catechin, caffeic acid, and phytic acid against oxidative damage in SK-Hep-1 cells induced by the oxidative and non-oxidative metabolism of ethanol. Exposure of the cells to excess ethanol resulted in a significant increase in cytotoxicity, rea...

Enzymatic saccharification of corn stover using Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Gloeophyllum trabeum and subsequent fermentation of the saccharification products to ethanol by Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli K011 were achieved. Prior to simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) for ethanol production, solid-state fermentation was performed for four days on ground corn s...

Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains having a broad range of substrate utilization, rapid substrate consumption, and conversion to ethanol, as well as good tolerance to inhibitory conditions are ideal for cost-competitive ethanol production from lignocellulose. A major drawback to directly design S. cerevisiae tolerance to inhibitory conditions of lignocellulosic ethanol production processes is the...

Sugar beet pulp is an abundant industrial waste material that holds a great potential for bioethanol production owing to its high content of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectin. Its structural and chemical robustness limits the yield of fermentable sugars obtained by hydrolyzation and represents the main bottleneck for bioethanol production. Physical (ultrasound and thermal) pretreatment meth...

Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) cv. Yellow Candy flowers were treated with ethanol solution (4%) in the absence or presence of 1 or 10 mM L-methionine, or ethanol or acetaldehyde solution (0.05%), in the absence or presence of 1 mM aminocyclopropane carboxylic acid (ACC). Spermidine in petals was measured over time in flowers treated with 4% ethanol or distilled water. Ethanol treatment si...