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Abstract
Consolidated bioprocessing (CBP), which integrates enzyme production, saccharification and fermentation into a one step process, is a promising strategy for the effective ethanol production from cheap lignocellulosic and starchy materials. CBP requires a highly engineered microbial strain able to both hydrolyze biomass with enzymes produced on its own and convert the resulting simple sugars into high-titer ethanol. Recently, heterologous production of cellulose and starch-degrading enzymes has been achieved in yeast hosts, which has realized direct processing of biomass to ethanol. However, essentially all efforts aimed at the efficient heterologous expression of saccharolytic enzymes in yeast have involved laboratory strains and much of this work has to be transferred to industrial yeasts that provide the fermentation capacity and robustness desired for large scale bioethanol production. Specifically, the development of an industrial CBP amylolytic yeast would allow the one-step processing of low-cost starchy substrates into ethanol. This article gives insight in the current knowledge and achievements on bioethanol production from starchy materials with industrial engineered S. cerevisiae strains.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the BiotechIIbis and BiotechIII projects (Regione Veneto, Italy), the Progetto di Ateneo 2010 N. CPDA102570 (University of Padova, Italy), the bilateral joint research project N. ZA11MO2 entitled “Development of robust yeast strains for bioethanol production from starchy and cellulosic plant biomass” and by the National Research Foundation (South Africa). Dr. Lorenzo Favaro is recipient of “Assegno di ricerca Junior” grant (University of Padova). Stefania Zannoni and Federico Fontana (University of Padova) are acknowledged for technical analysis.