Toxicants improve glycerol production in the fermentation of undetoxified hydrolysate by Candida glycerinogenes

Toxicants inhibit microbial fermentation and reduce product titres. This work investigated the glycerol production characteristics of Candida glycerinogenes in highly toxic unwashed undetoxified hydrolysate and provided new ideas for high glycerol production from hydrolysates.

The unwashed hydrolysate contains higher concentrations of toxicants, such as furfural, acetic acid, phenols and NaCl than the washed alkali-treated bagasse hydrolysate. C. glycerinogenes fermented unwashed undetoxified hydrolysate yielded 36.1 g/L glycerol, 15.8% higher than the washed hydrolysate, suggesting that the toxicants stimulated glycerol synthesis. qRT-PCR analysis showed that toxicants of unwashed undetoxified hydrolysates greatly up-regulated the transcript levels of the genes GPD1, HXT4 and MSN4 et al. Overexpressing the above genes increased glycerol production by 27.9% to 46.1 g/L. And it was further increased by 8.8% to 50.1 g/L in a 5 L bioreactor.

This result proves that toxicants in lignocellulosic hydrolysates can increase the titre of microbial glycerol production.