The Xylose Metabolizing Yeast Spathaspora passalidarum is a Promising Genetic Treasure for Improving Bioethanol Production

Abstract

Currently, the fermentation technology for recycling agriculture waste for generation of alternative renewable biofuels is getting more and more attention because of the environmental merits of biofuels for decreasing the rapid rise of greenhouse gas effects compared to petrochemical, keeping in mind the increase of petrol cost and the exhaustion of limited petroleum resources. One of widely used biofuels is bioethanol, and the use of yeasts for commercial fermentation of cellulosic and hemicellulosic agricultural biomasses is one of the growing biotechnological trends for bioethanol production. Effective fermentation and assimilation of xylose, the major pentose sugar element of plant cell walls and the second most abundant carbohydrate, is a bottleneck step towards a robust biofuel production from agricultural waste materials. Hence, several attempts were implemented to engineer the conventional Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast to transport and ferment xylose because naturally it does not use xylose, using genetic materials of Pichia stipitis, the pioneer native xylose fermenting yeast. Recently, the nonconventional yeast Spathaspora passalidarum appeared as a founder member of a new small group of yeasts that, like Pichia stipitis, can utilize and ferment xylose. Therefore, the understanding of the molecular mechanisms regulating the xylose assimilation in such pentose fermenting yeasts will enable us to eliminate the obstacles in the biofuels pipeline, and to develop industrial strains by means of genetic engineering to increase the availability of renewable biofuel products from agricultural biomass. In this review, we will highlight the recent advances in the field of native xylose metabolizing yeasts, with special emphasis on S. passalidarum for improving bioethanol production.