Structural and functional analysis of Trichoderma reesei endoglucanase I expressed in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Effect of codon optimization on the expression of Trichoderma reesei endoglucanase 1 in Pichia pastoris

Trichoderma reesei cellulases are important biocatalysts for a wide range of industrial applications that include the paper, feed, and textile industries. T. reesei endoglucanase 1 (egl1) was successfully expressed as an active and stable catalyst in Pichia pastoris for the first time. Codon optimization was applied to egl1 of T. reesei to enhance its expression levels in P. pastoris. When compared with the originally cloned egl1 gene of T. reesei, the synthetic codon optimized egl1 gene (egl1s) was expressed at a higher level in P. pastoris. Batch fermentations of both clones with the same copy number under controlled conditions indicated that codon optimized EGI enzyme activity increased to 1.24 fold after 72 h of methanol induction. Our research indicated that P. pastoris is a suitable host for cellulase production.

A novel method for efficient expression cloning of fungal enzyme genes

We have developed a method for fast and efficient isolation of enzyme genes from filamentous fungi by combining the ability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to express heterologous genes with the utilisation of sensitive and reliable enzyme assays. A cDNA library from the fungus Humicola insolens was constructed in a S. cerevisiae/Escherichia coli shuttle vector in E. coli. Sub-pools of the library were subsequently screened for enzyme activity in S. cerevisiae. More than 130 clones were identified as positive in either an endo-beta-glucanase or an endo-xylanase assay. Based on a partial characterization of the DNA sequence of the individual clones, they could be grouped into five distinct types of endo-beta-glucanases and three types of endo-xylanases. A representative cDNA from each type was sub-cloned in an Aspergillus vector and expressed in A. oryzae. The new cloning method may be an important alternative to traditional cloning methods based on amino acid sequence information.