earticle

영어

The thermotolerant methylotrophic yeast Hansenula polymorpha has been shown to metabolize and ferment ethanol from glucose, xylose, cellobiose, starch, and xylan substrates which makes it an ideal candidate for lignocellulosic biomass-based ethanol fermentation. In addition to biomass, crude glycerol, a co-product of biodiesel transesterification, has become a valuable substance for ethanol production due to its high abundance, low cost, and high reducibility. However, ethanol production from glycerol by H. polymorpha has not been investigated thoroughly. In this study, we compared the transcriptome profiles of H. polymorpha grown on glycerol with those of glucose-grown cells both under aerobic and microaerobic conditions. About two percent of the 5.848 H. polymorpha genes were either up- or down-regulated more than two-fold during growth on glycerol. As expected the majority of the up-regulated genes was involved in metabolism including some of glycerol metabolic genes. On the other hand, the majority of the down-regulated genes was involved in central metabolism and cellular transport. Our results will allow us to understand and engineer the glycerol metabolism in H. polymorpha.