Engineering amylolytic yeasts for industrial bioethanol production.

The development of a amylolytic yeast could yield large cost reductions in the industrial ethanol conversion of starchy substrates. The aim of this study was to develop an efficient amylolytic Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain suitable for industrial bioethanol production. A wild type S. cerevisiae strain with promising industrial fermentative traits was engineered to secrete a fungal glucoamylase (SgaI). The obtained recombinant strains were able to hydrolyse starch and to convert the resulting glucose into ethanol. Further preliminary fermentation studies on unmodified corn starch indicate that the engineered yeast strains could be efficiently used for the Consolidated Bioprocessing of different starchy industrial residues.