1. Revisiting a 'simple' fungal metabolic pathway reveals redundancy, complexity and diversity
- Author
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Chroumpi, Tania, Peng, Mao, Aguilar-Pontes, Maria Victoria, Müller, Astrid, Wang, Mei, Yan, Juying, Lipzen, Anna, Ng, Vivian, Grigoriev, Igor V, Mäkelä, Miia R, de Vries, Ronald P, Molecular Plant Physiology, Sub Molecular Plant Physiology, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Department of Microbiology, Fungal Genetics and Biotechnology, Molecular Plant Physiology, Sub Molecular Plant Physiology, Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute - Fungal Physiology, and Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute
- Subjects
Pentoses ,Pentose ,Bioengineering ,Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology ,Biochemistry ,Microbiology ,Cell wall ,Metabolic engineering ,03 medical and health sciences ,Gene ,Research Articles ,030304 developmental biology ,11832 Microbiology and virology ,chemistry.chemical_classification ,0303 health sciences ,Xylose ,biology ,030306 microbiology ,Catabolism ,Aspergillus niger ,biology.organism_classification ,Arabinose ,Metabolic pathway ,Enzyme ,chemistry ,Metabolic Networks and Pathways ,TP248.13-248.65 ,Research Article ,Biotechnology - Abstract
Summary Next to d‐glucose, the pentoses l‐arabinose and d‐xylose are the main monosaccharide components of plant cell wall polysaccharides and are therefore of major importance in biotechnological applications that use plant biomass as a substrate. Pentose catabolism is one of the best‐studied pathways of primary metabolism of Aspergillus niger, and an initial outline of this pathway with individual enzymes covering each step of the pathway has been previously established. However, although growth on l‐arabinose and/or d‐xylose of most pentose catabolic pathway (PCP) single deletion mutants of A. niger has been shown to be negatively affected, it was not abolished, suggesting the involvement of additional enzymes. Detailed analysis of the single deletion mutants of the known A. niger PCP genes led to the identification of additional genes involved in the pathway. These results reveal a high level of complexity and redundancy in this pathway, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive understanding of metabolic pathways before entering metabolic engineering of such pathways for the generation of more efficient fungal cell factories., A detailed investigation of the fungal pentose catabolic pathway revealed that additional enzymes are involved in nearly all steps of the pathways. This stresses the importance of a good understanding of the genes and enzymes involved in metabolic pathways to be able to successfully perform metabolic engineering for the construction of cell factories.
- Published
- 2021