Production of heterologous polygalacturonase I from Aspergillus kawachii in Saccharomyces cerevisiae in batch and fed-batch cultures

The pg1 gene from the filamentous fungus Aspergillus kawachii, which codifies for an acid polygalacturonase, was cloned into the pYES2 expression vector, giving rise to the pYES2:pg1ΔI construct. Engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae, transformed with pYES2:pg1ΔI construct, both expressed and exported an active polygalacturonase with a MW of ~60 kDa and an isoelectric point of 3.7, similar to those reported for the wild-type enzyme. The recombinant enzyme has the ability to hydrolyze polygalacturonic acid at pH 2.5. Heterologous PG1 production was studied under controlled conditions in batch and fed-batch systems. A simultaneous addition of glucose and galactose was found to be the most suitable feeding strategy assayed, resulting in a final PG1 production of 50 U/ml. The production process proposed in this study could be applied for the industrial production of a novel and useful polygalacturonase.