Insights from the fungus Fusarium oxysporum point to high affinity glucose transporters as targets for enhancing ethanol production from lignocellulose.

ABSTRACT: Ethanol is the most-widely used biofuel in the world today. Lignocellulosic plant biomass derived from agricultural residue can be converted to ethanol via microbial bioprocessing. Fungi such as Fusarium oxysporum can simultaneously saccharify straw to sugars and ferment sugars to ethanol. But there are many bottlenecks that need to be overcome to increase the efficacy of microbial production of ethanol from straw, not least enhancement of the rate of fermentation of both hexose and pentose sugars. This research tested the hypothesis that the rate of sugar uptake by F. oxysporum would enhance the ethanol yields from lignocellulosic straw and that high affinity glucose transporters can enhance ethanol yields from this substrate. We characterized a novel hexose transporter (Hxt) from this fu

SUBMITTER: Ali SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3559794 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature