Team:HUST-China

Purpose: Designing two yeast surface display systems and utilizing the systems to display several lignocellulose-degrading enzymes, achieving the effecient conversion of natural lignocellulose to produce biofuels throught metabolic engineering.

Project details: The bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to produce fuels becomes more and more important due to the shortage of fossil energy. The natural lignocellulose is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. For the carbohydrate polymers (cellulose and hemicelluloses) are tightly bound to the lignin, it’s difficult to degrade carbohydrate polymers to monosaccharide. Also, the fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol is an attractive route to fuels that supplements the fossil fuels. In our study, an industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strain capable of fermenting ethanol from natural lignocellulosic material was engineered. The engineered cellulolytic yeast produces ethanol in one step through simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of biomass without the addition of exogenously produced enzymes.