The xylose-fermenting recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its improvement have been studied extensively. The redox balance between xylose reductase (XR) and xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH) is thought to be an important factor in effective xylose fermentation. Using protein engineering, we previously successfully reduced xylitol accumulation and improved ethanol production by reversing the dependency of XDH from NAD(+) to NADP(+). We also constructed a set of novel strictly NADPH-dependent XR from Pichia stipitis by site-directed mutagenesis. In the present study, we constructed a set of recombinant S. cerevisiae carrying a novel set of mutated strictly NADPH-dependent XR and NADP(+)-dependent XDH genes with overexpression of endogenous xylulokinase (XK) to study the effects of complete NADPH/NADP(+) recycling on ethanol fermentation and xylitol accumulation. All mutated strains demonstrated reduced xylitol accumulation, ranging 34.4-54.7% compared with the control strain. Moreover, compared with the control strain, the two strains showed 20% and 10% improvement in ethanol production.
Xylose reductase (XR) and xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH) are the key enzymes for xylose fermentation and have been widely used for construction of a recombinant xylose fermenting yeast. The effective recycling of cofactors between XR and XDH has been thought to be important to achieve effective xylose fermentation. Efforts to alter the coenzyme specificity of XR and HDX by site-directed mutagenesis have been widely made for improvement of efficiency of xylose fermentation. We previously succeeded by protein engineering to improve ethanol production by reversing XDH dependency from NAD(+) to NADP(+). In this study, we applied protein engineering to construct a novel strictly NADPH-dependent XR from Pichia stipitis by site-directed mutagenesis, in order to recycle NADPH between XR and XDH effectively. One double mutant, E223A/S271A showing strict NADPH dependency with 106% activity of wild-type was generated. A second double mutant, E223D/S271A, showed a 1.27-fold increased activity compared to the wild-type XR with NADPH and almost negligible activity with NADH.
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