Sunday, August 11, 2013
Pavilion (Sheraton San Diego)
Pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomasses by acid hydrolysis generates cellular inhibitors such as Furfural, HMF, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to overcome the toxicity in the hydrolysate. Our aim is to develop the strain capable of tolerant to the inhibitors. We focused the effect of the inhibitors to Corynebacterium glutamicum, which is widely used for industrial strains. Cellular growth was retarded under various conditions of cellular inhibitors, including furfural that is a derivative of furan in the hydrolysate. C. glutamicum grown with furfural showed over 2-folds of reactive oxygen species stresses. In addition, the lower conversion rate of furfural was measured. We have engineered C. glutamicum by overexpressing the target genes. When we cultivated the engineered strains with furfural, they showed improved the growth rate. Several metabolic engineering approaches could further improve the tolerance in C. glutamicum. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (2013, University-Institute cooperation program) and ‘Creative Allied Program (CAP)’ through the Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology (KRCF) and Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).