Direct ethanol fermentation from amorphous cellulose was achieved using an engineered industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain. Two cellulase genes endoglucanase (eg3) and β-glucosidase (bgl1) were obtained from Trichoderma viride and integrated into the genome of S. cerevisiae. These two cellulases could be constitutively coexpressed and secreted by the recombinant strain S. cerevisiae-eb. T...

The recent start-up of several full-scale 'second generation' ethanol plants marks a major milestone in the development of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains for fermentation of lignocellulosic hydrolysates of agricultural residues and energy crops. After a discussion of the challenges that these novel industrial contexts impose on yeast strains, this minireview describes key metabolic engineerin...

BACKGROUND n-Caproic acid (CA), as a medium-chain carboxylic acid, is a valuable chemical feedstock for various industrial applications. The fermentative production of CA from renewable carbon sources has attracted a lot of attentions. Lactate is a significant intermediate waste in the anaerobic breakdown of carbohydrates that comprise 18-70% of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) in municipal and...

BACKGROUND Manufacture of probiotic products involves industrial processes that reduce the viability of the strains. This lost of viability constitutes an economic burden for manufacturers, compromising the efficacy of the product and preventing the inclusion of probiotics in many product categories. Different strategies have been used to improve probiotic stability during industrial processes....

Streptomyces kanamyceticus 12-6 is a derivative of the wild-type strain developed for industrial kanamycin (Km) production. Southern analysis and DNA sequencing revealed amplification of a large genomic segment including the entire Km biosynthetic gene cluster in the chromosome of strain 12-6. At 145 kb, the amplifiable unit of DNA (AUD) is the largest AUD reported in Streptomyces. Striking rep...

Cephamycin C production was blocked in wild-type cultures of the clavulanic acid-producing organism Streptomyces clavuligerus by targeted disruption of the gene (lat) encoding lysine epsilon-aminotransferase. Specific production of clavulanic acid increased in the lat mutants derived from the wild-type strain by 2- to 2.5-fold. Similar beneficial effects on clavulanic acid production were noted...

BACKGROUND The genome of the important industrial host Bacillus subtilis does not encode the glyoxylate shunt, which is necessary to utilize overflow metabolites, like acetate or acetoin, as carbon source. In this study, the operon encoding the isocitrate lyase (aceB) and malate synthase (aceA) from Bacillus licheniformis was transferred into the chromosome of B. subtilis. The resulting strain ...

Reinforced rubber is thanks to its elastic and dissipative properties found in industrial applications such as isolators, flexible joints and tires. Its dissipative propertied comes from material related losses which have the effect that energy invested when deforming the material is not retained when returning it back to its initial state. The material losses are in turn caused by interactions...

BACKGROUND Pichia stipitis xylose reductase (Ps-XR) has been used to design Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains that are able to ferment xylose. One example is the industrial S. cerevisiae xylose-consuming strain TMB3400, which was constructed by expression of P. stipitis xylose reductase and xylitol dehydrogenase and overexpression of endogenous xylulose kinase in the industrial S. cerevisiae str...

UNLABELLED 5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), a nonprotein amino acid involved in tetrapyrrole synthesis, has been widely applied in agriculture, medicine, and food production. Many engineered metabolic pathways have been constructed; however, the production yields are still low. In this study, several 5-aminolevulinic acid synthases (ALASs) from different sources were evaluated and compared with res...