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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Davis, California » Crops Pathology and Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #315101
Title: Alcohol consumption and tolerance of Neurospora crassa

Author
item LIN, HUI - University Of California
item WARMACK, REBECCAH - University Of California
item HAN, SHUANGYAN - University Of California
item Kasuga, Takao
item FAN, ZHILIANG - University Of California

Submitted to: Fermentation Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/7/2016
Publication Date: 11/15/2016
Citation: Lin, H., Warmack, R., Han, S., Kasuga, T., Fan, Z. 2016. Alcohol consumption and tolerance of Neurospora crassa as a potential consolidated bioprocessing microorganism. Fementation Technology. 5:136. doi: 10.4172/2167-7972.1000136.

Interpretive Summary: Both plant pathogenic fungi and oomycetes possess alcohol dehydrogenase homologs, however, their roles in growth and pathogenesis is uncharacterized. In this report, we characterized two alcohol dehydrogenase homologs from a plant pathogen Neurospora crassa, characterized phenotypes of gene deletion mutants and explored the use of these mutants for the production of ethanol from cellulosic material for biofuel production.

Technical Abstract: The alcohol consumption and tolerance of the ascomycete Neurospora crassa was investigated in this study. This fungus is able to utilize both native alcohol and non-native alcohols as carbon sources, yet little is known about the enzymes involved in these processes. The deletion of alcohol dehydrogenase 1 gene (adh-1) from the genome can efficiently prohibit both ethanol and isobutanol metabolism, while the deletion of the alcohol dehydrogenase 3 gene (adh-3) does not have an observable effect on the prevention of alcohol consumption. Both wild type N. crassa and the N. crassa 'adh-1 strain can tolerate up to 48 g/L ethanol and 8.5 g/L isobutanol when grown on glucose or Avicel.