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Construction of a promoter collection for genes co-expression in filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei

  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Trichoderma reesei is the preferred organism for producing industrial cellulases. However, cellulases derived from T. reesei have their highest activity at acidic pH. When the pH value increased above 7, the enzyme activities almost disappeared, thereby limiting the application of fungal cellulases under neutral or alkaline conditions. A lot of heterologous alkaline cellulases have been successfully expressed in T. reesei to improve its cellulolytic profile. To our knowledge, there are few reports describing the co-expression of two or more heterologous cellulases in T. reesei. We designed and constructed a promoter collection for gene expression and co-expression in T. reesei. Taking alkaline cellulase as a reporter gene, we assessed our promoters with strengths ranging from 4 to 106 % as compared to the pWEF31 expression vector (Lv D, Wang W, Wei D (2012) Construction of two vectors for gene expression in Trichoderma reesei. Plasmid 67(1):67–71). The promoter collection was used in a proof-of-principle approach to achieve the co-expression of an alkaline endoglucanase and an alkaline cellobiohydrolase. We observed higher activities of both cellulose degradation and biostoning by the co-expression of an endoglucanase and a cellobiohydrolase than the activities obtained by the expression of only endoglucanase or cellobiohydrolase. This study makes the process of engineering expression of multiple genes easier in T. reesei.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863, Program NO.2012AA022206), and Fundamental Research Funds of the Central Universities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State key Lab of Bioreactor Engineering, New World Institute of Biotechnology, East China University of Science and Technology, P.O.B. 311, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Wei Wang, Fanju Meng, Pei Liu, Shengli Yang & Dongzhi Wei

Authors
  1. Wei Wang
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  2. Fanju Meng
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  3. Pei Liu
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  4. Shengli Yang
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  5. Dongzhi Wei
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Correspondence to Wei Wang or Dongzhi Wei.

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Wei Wang and Fanju Meng have contributed equally to the work.

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Wang, W., Meng, F., Liu, P. et al. Construction of a promoter collection for genes co-expression in filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei . J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 41, 1709–1718 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-014-1508-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-014-1508-2

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