New wheat straw fermentation feed: recombinant Schizosaccharomyces pombe efficient degradation of lignocellulose and increase feed protein

Abstract

Wheat straw contains a high amount of lignin, hindering the action of cellulase and hemicellulase enzymes, leading to difficulties in nutrient absorption by animals from straw feed. However, currently, the biological treatment of straw relies primarily on fungal degradation and cannot be directly utilized for the preparation of livestock feed. This study focuses on enzymatic co-fermentation of wheat straw to produce high-protein, low-cellulose biological feed, integrating lignin degradation with feed manufacturing, thereby simplifying the feed production process. After the optimization using Box-Behnken Design for the feed formulation, with a glucose oxidase addition of 2.46%, laccase addition of 3.4%, and malonic acid addition of 0.6%, the wheat straw feed prepared in this experiment exhibited a true protein content of 9.35%. This represented a fourfold increase compared to the non-fermented state, and the lignocellulose degradation rate of wheat straw reached 45.42%. These results not only highlight the substantial enhancement in protein content but also underscore the significant advancement in lignocellulose breakdown. This formulation significantly enhanced the palatability and nutritional value of the straw feed, contributing to the industrial development of straw feed.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Box-Behnken design
• fermentation feed
• Lignocellulose degradation
• true protein
• wheat straw

Authors contribution

Huayou Chen received the financial support, and conceptualized the workflow; Xihua Chen designed the experiments and wrote the manuscript; Xiaoyu Liang performed all the experiments; Lu He, Na Shi, and Shouzhi Li supervised the workflow and assisted in manuscript preparation; Yi Ma, Daochen Zhu, and Zhong Ni reviewed and corrected the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFC2103004 and 2021YFA0910402), and by Jiangsu Province Peak Carbon Neutral Science and Technology Innovation Project (Modern Agriculture), under Grant number (BE2023399).