Synergistic modular promoter and gene optimization to push cellulase secretion by Pichia pastoris beyond existing benchmarks.

Although successfully used for heterologous gene expression for more than twenty years, general knowledge about all factors influencing protein expression by Pichia pastoris is still lacking. For high titers of protein clones are optimized individually for each target protein. Optimization efforts in this study were focused on the DNA level, evaluating a set of 48 different individual synthetic genes (TrCBH2) coding for the same protein sequence of a Trichoderma reesei cellulase in combination with three different promoter sequences: PGAP (constitutive) and the synthetic AOX1 promoter variants PDeS (derepressed) and PEn (enhanced, inducible). Expression of active secreted enzyme varied from undetectable to ∼300% of the best known gene, as determined by secreted enzyme activity analyses of supernatants from 96 well plate and bioreactor cultivations. Finally, the best optimized gene and new promoters were combined to engineer highly productive P. pastoris CBH2 expression strains. Although no methanol was used for induction a final titer of more than 18g/l of secreted protein was produced under controlled conditions in small scale bioreactor cultivations after 60-70h of growth limiting glycerol feed. This is the highest concentration of secreted enzyme in P. pastoris published so far and single parts of the expression cassette could be independently optimized showing additive effects for improvements in protein production by P. pastoris.

Expression of lignocellulolytic enzymes in Pichia pastoris.

BACKGROUND: Sustainable utilization of plant biomass as renewable source for fuels and chemical building blocks requires a complex mixture of diverse enzymes, including hydrolases which comprise the largest class of lignocellulolytic enzymes. These enzymes need to be available in large amounts at a low price to allow sustainable and economic biotechnological processes.Over the past years Pichia pastoris has become an attractive host for the cost-efficient production and engineering of heterologous (eukaryotic) proteins due to several advantages. RESULTS: In this paper codon optimized genes and synthetic alcohol oxidase 1 promoter variants were used to generate Pichia pastoris strains which individually expressed cellobiohydrolase 1, cellobiohydrolase 2 and beta-mannanase from Trichoderma reesei and xylanase A from Thermomyces lanuginosus. For three of these enzymes we could develop strains capable of secreting gram quantities of enzyme per liter in fed-batch cultivations. Additionally, we compared our achieved yields of secreted enzymes and the corresponding activities to literature data. CONCLUSION: In our experiments we could clearly show the importance of gene optimization and strain characterization for successfully improving secretion levels. We also present a basic guideline how to correctly interpret the interplay of promoter strength and gene dosage for a successful improvement of the secretory production of lignocellulolytic enzymes in Pichia pastoris.

Sensitive high-throughput screening for the detection of reducing sugars.

The exploitation of renewable resources for the production of biofuels relies on efficient processes for the enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials. The development of enzymes and strains for these processes requires reliable and fast activity-based screening assays. Additionally, these assays are also required to operate on the microscale and on the high-throughput level. Herein, we report the development of a highly sensitive reducing-sugar assay in a 96-well microplate screening format. The assay is based on the formation of osazones from reducing sugars and para-hydroxybenzoic acid hydrazide. By using this sensitive assay, the enzyme loads and conversion times during lignocellulose hydrolysis can be reduced, thus allowing higher throughput. The assay is about five times more sensitive than the widely applied dinitrosalicylic acid based assay and can reliably detect reducing sugars down to 10 µM. The assay-specific variation over one microplate was determined for three different lignocellulolytic enzymes and ranges from 2 to 8%. Furthermore, the assay was combined with a microscale cultivation procedure for the activity-based screening of Pichia pastoris strains expressing functional Thermomyces lanuginosus xylanase A, Trichoderma reesei ß-mannanase, or T. reesei cellobiohydrolase 2.