A genome shuffling-generated Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolate that ferments xylose and glucose to produce high levels of ethanol.

Genome shuffling is an efficient approach for the rapid improvement of industrially important microbial phenotypes. This report describes optimized conditions for protoplast preparation, regeneration, inactivation, and fusion using the Saccharomyces cerevisiae W5 strain. Ethanol production was confirmed by TTC (triphenyl tetrazolium chloride) screening and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). A genetically stable, high ethanol-producing strain that fermented xylose and glucose was obtained following three rounds of genome shuffling. After fermentation for 84 h, the high ethanol-producing S. cerevisiae GS3-10 strain (which utilized 69.48 and 100% of the xylose and glucose stores, respectively) produced 26.65 g/L ethanol, i.e., 47.08% higher than ethanol production by S. cerevisiae W5 (18.12 g/L). The utilization ratios of xylose and glucose were 69.48 and 100%, compared to 14.83 and 100% for W5, respectively. The ethanol yield was 0.40 g/g (ethanol/consumed glucose and xylose), i.e., 17.65% higher than the yield by S. cerevisiae W5 (0.34 g/g).