Production of the Phanerochaete flavido-alba laccase in Aspergillus niger for synthetic dyes decolorization and biotransformation

Decolorization and detoxication of malachite green by engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing novel thermostable laccase from Trametes trogii

Malachite Green (MG) is a widely used industrial dye that is hazardous to health. Herein, the decolourisation and detoxification of MG were achieved using the engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing novel thermostable laccase lcc1 from Trametes trogii. The engineered strain RCL produced a high laccase activity of 121.83 U L-1. Lcc1 was stable at temperatures ranging from 20 ℃ to 60 ℃ and showed a high tolerance to organic solvents. Moreover, Lcc1 could decolorize different kinds of dyes (azo, anthraquinone and triphenylmethane), among which, the decolorization ability of MG is the highest, reaching 95.10 %, and the decolorization rate of other triphenylmethane dyes also over 50 %. The RCL decolorized about 95 % of 50 mg L-1 of MG dye in 10 h at 30 ℃. The MG degradation products were analyzed. The industrial application potential of the RCL was evaluated by treating industrial wastewater and the decolourisation rates were over 90 %.

Design and genome engineering of microbial cell factories for efficient conversion of lignocellulose to fuel

The gradually increasing need for fossil fuels demands renewable biofuel substitutes. This has fascinated an increasing investigation to design innovative energy fuels that have comparable Physico-chemical and combustion characteristics with fossil-derived fuels. The efficient microbes for bioenergy synthesis desire the proficiency to consume a large quantity of carbon substrate, transfer various carbohydrates through efficient metabolic pathways, capability to withstand inhibitory components and other degradation compounds, and improve metabolic fluxes to synthesize target compounds. Metabolically engineered microbes could be an efficient methodology for synthesizing biofuel from cellulosic biomass by cautiously manipulating enzymes and metabolic pathways. This review offers a comprehensive perspective on the trends and advances in metabolic and genetic engineering technologies for advanced biofuel synthesis by applying various heterologous hosts. Probable technologies include enzyme engineering, heterologous expression of multiple genes, CRISPR-Cas technologies for genome editing, and cell surface display.

Laccase: Various types and applications

Laccase belongs to the polyphenol oxidase family and is very important in removing environmental pollutants due to its structural and functional properties. Recently, the ability of laccase to oxidize phenolic and nonphenolic substances has been considered by many researchers. This enzyme's application scope includes a broad range of chemical processes and industrial usages, such as bioremediation, nanobiotechnology, woodworking industries, bleaching of paper pulp, dyeing in the textile industry, biotechnological uses in food industries, biorefining, detoxification from wastewater, production of organic matter from phenolic and amine substrates, and biofuels. Although filamentous fungi produce large amounts of laccase, high-yield industrial-scale production of laccase is still faced with many problems. At present, researchers are trying to increase the efficiency and productivity and reduce the final price of laccase by finding suitable microorganisms and improving the process of production and purification of laccase. This article reviews the introduction of laccase, its properties, production processes, and the effect of various factors on the enzyme's stability and activity, and some of its applications in various industries.

Engineered microbes as effective tools for the remediation of polyaromatic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals

Heavy metals (HMs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have become a major concern to human health and the environment due to rapid industrialization and urbanization. Traditional treatment measures for removing toxic substances from the environment have largely failed, and thus development and advancement in newer remediation techniques are of utmost importance. Rising environmental pollution with HMs and PAHs prompted the research on microbes and the development of genetically engineered microbes (GEMs) for reducing pollution via the bioremediation process. The enzymes produced from a variety of microbes can effectively treat a range of pollutants, but evolutionary trends revealed that various emerging pollutants are resistant to microbial or enzymatic degradation. Naturally, existing microbes can be engineered using various techniques including, gene engineering, directed evolution, protein engineering, media engineering, strain engineering, cell wall modifications, rationale hybrid design, and encapsulation or immobilization process. The immobilization of microbes and enzymes using a variety of nanomaterials, membranes, and supports with high specificity toward the emerging pollutants is also an effective strategy to capture and treat the pollutants. The current review focuses on successful bioremediation techniques and approaches that make use of GEMs or engineered enzymes. Such engineered microbes are more potent than natural strains and have greater degradative capacities, as well as rapid adaptation to various pollutants as substrates or co-metabolizers. The future for the implementation of genetic engineering to produce such organisms for the benefit of the environment andpublic health is indeed long and valuable.

Synthetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae tolerate and degrade highly pollutant complex hydrocarbon mixture

Fungal laccase (Lac) has become a very useful biocatalyst in different industries, bio-refineries and, most importantly, bioremediation. Many reports have also linked hydrocarbon tolerance and degradation by various microorganisms with Lac secretion. In this study, Trametes trogii Lac (Ttlcc1) was engineered into Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain CEN.PK2-1 C under the constitutive GPD promoter (pGPD) for multi-fold synthesis with efficient hydrocarbon tolerance and degradation. Protein expression in heterologous hosts is strictly strain-specific, it can also be influenced by the synthetic design and culture conditions. We compared synthetic designs with different shuttle vectors for the yeast strains and investigated the best culture conditions by varying the pH, temperature, carbon, nitrogen sources, and CuSO₄ amount. Two S. cerevisiae strains were built in this study: byMM935 and byMM938. They carry the transcription unit pGPD-Ttlcc1-CYC1t either inside the pRSII406 integrative plasmid (byMM935) or the pRSII426 multicopy plasmid (byMM938). The performance of these two synthetic strains were studied by comparing them to the wild-type strain (byMM584). Both byMM935 and byMM938 showed significant response to different carbon sources (glucose, galactose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose), nitrogen sources (NH₄Cl, NH₄NO₃, KNO₃, malt extract, peptone, and yeast extract), and solid state fermentation of different plant biomasses (bagasse, banana peels, corn cob, mandarin peels, and peanut shells). They performed best in optimized growth conditions with specific carbon and nitrogen sources, and a preferred pH in the range 3.5-4.5, temperature between 30 and 40 ⁰C, and 1 mM CuSO_4. In optimized yeast-growth medium, strain byMM935 showed the highest laccase activities of 1.621 ± 0.063 U/mL at 64 h, whereas byMM938 gave its highest activity (1.417 ± 0.055 U/mL) at 48 h. In this work, we established, by using Bushnell Hass synthetic medium, that the new Ttlcc1-yeast strains tolerated extreme pH and complex hydrocarbon mixture (CHM) toxicity. They degraded 60-90% of the key components in CHM within 48 h, including poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, alkyl indenes, alkyl tetralines, alkyl benzenes, alkyl biphenyls, and BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylenes). This is the first report on the hydrocarbon degradation potential of a Ttlcc1-yeast. Compared to the native organism, such synthetic strains are better suited for meeting growing demands and have potentials for application in large-scale in situ bioremediation of hydrocarbon-polluted sites.

Implementation of Genetic Engineering and Novel Omics Approaches to Enhance Bioremediation: A Focused Review

Bioremediation itself is considered to be a cost effective soil clean-up technique and preferred over invasive physical and chemical treatments. Besides increasing efficiency, application of genetic engineering has led to reduction in the time duration required to achieve remediation, overcoming the so called 'Achilles heel' of Bioremediation. Omics technologies, namely genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, are being employed extensively to gain insights at genetic level. A wise synchronised application of these approaches can help scrutinize complex metabolic pathways, and molecular changes in response to heavy metal stress, and also its fate i.e., uptake, transport, sequestration and detoxification. In the present review, an account of some latest achievements made in the field is presented.

Novel Cold-Adapted Recombinant Laccase KbLcc1 from Kabatiella bupleuri G3 IBMiP as a Green Catalyst in Biotransformation

Cold-adapted enzymes are useful tools in the organic syntheses conducted in mixed aqueous-organic or non-aqueous solvents due to their molecular flexibility that stabilizes the proteins in low water activity environments. A novel psychrophilic laccase gene from Kabatiella bupleuri, G3 IBMiP, was spliced by Overlap-Extension PCR (OE-PCR) and expressed in Pichia pastoris. Purified recombinant KbLcc1 laccase has an optimal temperature of 30 °C and pH of 3.5, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 in the reaction with 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), guaiacol, sinapic acid, and syringaldazine, respectively. Moreover, laccase KbLcc1 is highly thermolabile, as it loses 40% of activity after 30 min at 40 °C and is inactivated at 50 °C after the same period of incubation. The new enzyme remained active with 1 mM of Ni2+, Cu2+, Mn2+, and Zn2+ and with 2 mM of Co2+, Ca2+, and Mg2+, but Fe2+ greatly inhibited the laccase activity. Moreover, 1% ethanol had no impact on KbLcc1, although acetone and ethyl acetate decreased the laccase activity. The presence of hexane (40%, v/v) caused a 58% increase in activity. Laccase KbLcc1 could be applied in the decolorization of synthetic dyes and in the biotransformation of ferulic acid to vanillin. After 5 days of reaction at 20 °C, pH 3.5, with 1 mM ABTS as a mediator, the vanillin concentration was 21.9 mg/L and the molar yield of transformation reached 14.39%.

Textile Industry Effluent Treatment Techniques

Dyes and other chemicals laden wastewater is a main environmental concern for increasing the textile industries in many parts of the world. Textile industries consume different kinds of manmade dyes or other chemicals and release huge extents of highly polluted water into the environment. This excessive dye laden wastewater has great impacts on photosynthetic activity in aquatic plants and animals, for example, fish. It may also affect human health due to the presence of components like heavy metals and chlorine in manmade dyes. Thus, wastewater effluent from textile industries must be treated before discharge into the water body. Treatment technologies observed in this review paper include biological treatment methods (fungi, algae, bacteria, and microbial fuel cells), chemical treatment methods (photocatalytic oxidation, ozone, and Fenton’s process), and physicochemical treatment methods (adsorption, ion exchange, coagulation, and filtration). This review also includes the hybrid treatment methods and their cost per m3 of treated wastewater analysis. There are alternative wastewater treatments systems at different steps of effluent generated from the textile operational unit recommend in this review work.

Citric acid from Aspergillus niger: a comprehensive overview

Microbial citric acid has high economic importance and widely used in beverage, food, detergents, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. The filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is a work horse and important cell factory in industry for the production of citric acid. Although in-depth literatures and reviews have been published to explain the biochemistry, biotechnology and genetic engineering study of citric acid production by Aspergillus niger separately but the present review compiled, all the aspects with upto date brief summary of the subject describing microorganisms, substrates and their pre-treatment, screening, fermentation techniques, metabolic engineering, biochemistry, product recovery and numerous biotechnological application of citric acid for simple understanding of microbial citric acid production. The availability of genome sequence of this organism has facilitated numerous studies in gene function, gene regulation, primary and secondary metabolism. An attempt has been also made to address the molecular mechanisms and application of recent advanced techniques such as CRISPR/Cas9 systems in enhancement of citric acid production.

Degradation and detoxification of azo dyes with recombinant ligninolytic enzymes from Aspergillus sp. with secretory overexpression in Pichia pastoris

Ligninolytic enzymes, including laccase (Lac), manganese peroxidase (MnP) and lignin peroxidase (LiP), have attracted much attention in the degradation of contaminants. Genes of Lac (1827 bp), MnP (1134 bp) and LiP (1119 bp) were cloned from Aspergillus sp. TS-A, and the recombinant Lac (69 kDa), MnP (45 kDa) and LiP (35 kDa) were secretory expressed in Pichia pastoris GS115, with enzyme activities of 34, 135.12 and 103.13 U l-1, respectively. Dyes of different structures were treated via the recombinant ligninolytic enzymes under the optimal degradation conditions, and the result showed that the decolourization rate of Lac on Congo red (CR) in 5 s was 45.5%. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis and toxicity tests further proved that the ligninolytic enzymes could destroy the dyes, both those with one or more azo bonds, and the degradation products were non-toxic. Moreover, the combined ligninolytic enzymes could degrade CR more completely compared with the individual enzyme. Remarkably, besides azo dyes, ligninolytic enzymes could also degrade triphenylmethane and anthracene dyes. This suggests that ligninolytic enzymes from Aspergillus sp. TS-A have the potential for application in the treatment of contaminants.

High-level expression of highly active and thermostable trehalase from Myceliophthora thermophila in Aspergillus niger by using the CRISPR/Cas9 tool and its application in ethanol fermentation

Trehalase catalyzes the hydrolysis of the non-reducing disaccharide trehalose. The highly active trehalase MthT from Myceliophthora thermophila was screened from the trehalase genes of six species of filamentous fungi. An ingenious multi-copy knock-in expression strategy mediated by the CRISPR/Cas9 tool and medium optimization were used to improve MthT production in Aspergillus niger, up to 1698.83 U/mL. The protein background was dramatically abated due to insertion. The recombinant MthT showed optimal activity at pH 5.5 and 60 °C, and exhibited prominent thermal stability between 50 and 60 °C under acid conditions (pH 4.5-6.5). The ethanol conversion rate (ethanol yield/total glucose) was significantly improved by addition of MthT (51.88%) compared with MthT absence (34.38%), using 30% starch saccharification liquid. The results of this study provided an effective strategy, established a convenient platform for heterologous expression in A. niger and showed a potential strategy to decrease production costs in industrial ethanol production.

Yeast Hosts for the Production of Recombinant Laccases: A Review

Laccases are multi-copper oxidoreductases which catalyze the oxidation of a wide range of substrates during the simultaneous reduction of oxygen to water. These enzymes, originally found in fungi, plants, and other natural sources, have many industrial and biotechnological applications. They are used in the food, textile, pulp, and paper industries, as well as for bioremediation purposes. Although natural hosts can provide relatively high levels of active laccases after production optimization, heterologous expression can bring, moreover, engineered enzymes with desired properties, such as different substrate specificity or improved stability. Hence, diverse hosts suitable for laccase production are reviewed here, while the greatest emphasis is placed on yeasts which are commonly used for industrial production of various proteins. Different approaches to optimize the laccase expression and activity are also discussed in detail here.

A critical review on textile wastewater treatments: Possible approaches

Waste water is a major environmental impediment for the growth of the textile industry besides the other minor issues like solid waste and resource waste management. Textile industry uses many kinds of synthetic dyes and discharge large amounts of highly colored wastewater as the uptake of these dyes by fabrics is very poor. This highly colored textile wastewater severely affects photosynthetic function in plant. It also has an impact on aquatic life due to low light penetration and oxygen consumption. It may also be lethal to certain forms of marine life due to the occurrence of component metals and chlorine present in the synthetic dyes. So, this textile wastewater must be treated before their discharge. In this article, different treatment methods to treat the textile wastewater have been presented along with cost per unit volume of treated water. Treatment methods discussed in this paper involve oxidation methods (cavitation, photocatalytic oxidation, ozone, H2O2, fentons process), physical methods (adsorption and filtration), biological methods (fungi, algae, bacteria, microbial fuel cell). This review article will also recommend the possible remedial measures to treat different types of effluent generated from each textile operation.

Diverse Metabolic Capacities of Fungi for Bioremediation

Bioremediation refers to cost-effective and environment-friendly method for converting the toxic, recalcitrant pollutants into environmentally benign products through the action of various biological treatments. Fungi play a major role in bioremediation owing to their robust morphology and diverse metabolic capacity. The review focuses on different fungal groups from a variety of habitats with their role in bioremediation of different toxic and recalcitrant compounds; persistent organic pollutants, textile dyes, effluents from textile, bleached kraft pulp, leather tanning industries, petroleum, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, and pesticides. Bioremediation of toxic organics by fungi is the most sustainable and green route for cleanup of contaminated sites and we discuss the multiple modes employed by fungi for detoxification of different toxic and recalcitrant compounds including prominent fungal enzymes viz., catalases, laccases, peroxidases and cyrochrome P450 monooxygeneses. We have also discussed the recent advances in enzyme engineering and genomics and research being carried out to trace the less understood bioremediation pathways.

Identification of a Classical Mutant in the Industrial Host Aspergillus niger by Systems Genetics: LaeA Is Required for Citric Acid Production and Regulates the Formation of Some Secondary Metabolites

The asexual filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is an important industrial cell factory for citric acid production. In this study, we genetically characterized a UV-generated A. niger mutant that was originally isolated as a nonacidifying mutant, which is a desirable trait for industrial enzyme production. Physiological analysis showed that this mutant did not secrete large amounts of citric acid and oxalic acid, thus explaining the nonacidifying phenotype. As traditional complementation approaches to characterize the mutant genotype were unsuccessful, we used bulk segregant analysis in combination with high-throughput genome sequencing to identify the mutation responsible for the nonacidifying phenotype. Since A. niger has no sexual cycle, parasexual genetics was used to generate haploid segregants derived from diploids by loss of whole chromosomes. We found that the nonacidifying phenotype was caused by a point mutation in the laeA gene. LaeA encodes a putative methyltransferase-domain protein, which we show here to be required for citric acid production in an A. niger lab strain (N402) and in other citric acid production strains. The unexpected link between LaeA and citric acid production could provide new insights into the transcriptional control mechanisms related to citric acid production in A. niger. Interestingly, the secondary metabolite profile of a ΔlaeA strain differed from the wild-type strain, showing both decreased and increased metabolite levels, indicating that LaeA is also involved in regulating the production of secondary metabolites. Finally, we show that our systems genetics approach is a powerful tool to identify trait mutations.

Recombinant expression of four oxidoreductases in Phanerochaete chrysosporium improves degradation of phenolic and non-phenolic substrates

Phanerochaete chrysosporium belongs to a group of lignin-degrading fungi that secretes various oxidoreductive enzymes, including lignin peroxidase (LiP) and manganese peroxidase (MnP). Previously, we demonstrated that the heterologous expression of a versatile peroxidase (VP) in P. chrysosporium recombinant strains is possible. However, the production of laccases (Lac) in this fungus has not been completely demonstrated and remains controversial. In order to investigate if the co-expression of Lac and VP in P. chrysosporium would improve the degradation of phenolic and non-phenolic substrates, we tested the constitutive co-expression of the lacIIIb gene from Trametes versicolor and the vpl2 gene from Pleurotus eryngii, and also the endogenous genes mnp1 and lipH8 by shock wave mediated transformation. The co-overexpression of peroxidases and laccases was improved up to five-fold as compared with wild type species. Transformant strains showed a broad spectrum in phenolic/non-phenolic biotransformation and a high percentage in synthetic dye decolorization in comparison with the parental strain. Our results show that the four enzymes can be constitutively expressed in a single transformant of P. chrysosporium in minimal medium. These data offer new possibilities for an easy and efficient co-expression of laccases and peroxidases in suitable basidiomycete species.