The list of recently completed microbial genome projects (Table 1) shows further progress in sequencing genomes of poorly studied environmental bacteria. The genome of Aquifex aeolicus, sequenced 10 years ago, has been joined by genomes of two more representatives of the phylum Aquificae. The genome of Polaribacter sp. MED152, a marine member of Bacteroidetes, revealed a combination of heterotr...

Production of extracellular endochitinase could be increased 5-fold in the mycoparasite fungus Trichoderma harzianum by using the cellulase promoter cbh1 of Trichoderma reesei, whereas the total endochitinase activity increased 10-fold. The cbh1 promoter was not expressed on glucose and sucrose in T. harzianum and was induced by sophorose and on cellulase-inducing medium. The endogenous endochi...

Cellulose has a important environmental role in the preservation of the global carbon cycle and commercial significance as a raw material for industry. To understand the biodegradation of cellulose on the atomic level, it is important to be able to relate enzyme activities with the three-dimensional (3D) structures of cellulases and cellulose. The cellulolytic system of the fungus Trichoderma r...

BACKGROUND The model cellulolytic fungus Trichoderma reesei (teleomorph Hypocrea jecorina) is capable of responding to environmental cues to compete for nutrients in its natural saprophytic habitat despite its genome encodes fewer degradative enzymes. Efficient signalling pathways in perception and interpretation of environmental signals are indispensable in this process. Ras GTPases represent ...

The industrial production of cellulolytic enzymes is dominated by the filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei (anamorph of Hypocrea jecorina). In order to develop optimal enzymatic cocktail, it is of importance to understand the natural regulation of the enzyme profile as response to the growth substrate. The influence of the complexity of cellulose on enzyme production by the microorganisms is n...

Background: Trichoderma reesei is the main industrial source of cellulases and hemicellulases required for the hydrolysis of biomass to simple sugars, which can then be used in the production of biofuels and biorefineries. The highly productive strains in use today were generated by classical mutagenesis. As byproducts of this procedure, mutants were generated that turned out to be unable to pr...

BACKGROUND Non-productive binding of enzymes to lignin is thought to impede the saccharification efficiency of pretreated lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars. Due to a lack of suitable analytical techniques that track binding of individual enzymes within complex protein mixtures and the difficulty in distinguishing the contribution of productive (binding to specific glycans) versus no...

In Trichoderma reesei light is an important factor in the regulation of glycoside hydrolase gene expression. We therefore investigated the influence of different light intensities on cellulase activity and protein secretion. Differentially secreted proteins in light and darkness as identified by mass spectrometry included members of different glycoside hydrolase families, such as CBH1, Cel3A, C...

BACKGROUND Spent hydrolysates from bioethanolic fermentation processes based on agricultural residues have potential as an abundant and inexpensive source of pentose sugars and acids that could serve as nutrients for industrial enzyme-producing microorganisms, especially filamentous fungi. However, the enzyme mixtures produced in such media are poorly defined. In this study, the secretome of Tr...

The industrially used ascomycete Trichoderma reesei secretes a typical yellow pigment during cultivation, while other Trichoderma species do not. A comparative genomic analysis suggested that a putative secondary metabolism cluster, containing two polyketide-synthase encoding genes, is responsible for the yellow pigment synthesis. This cluster is conserved in a set of rather distantly related f...