Patent Application: US-201615210834-A

Abstract:
this disclosure provides methods and compositions related to microbial gene expression . in one aspect , a synthetic polypeptide having a xylose import activity .

Description:
reference will now be made in detail to some specific examples of the invention including the best modes contemplated by the inventors for carrying out the invention . examples of these specific embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings . while the invention is described in conjunction with these specific embodiments , it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to the described embodiments . on the contrary , it is intended to cover alternatives , modifications , and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims . in the following description , numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention . particular example embodiments of the present invention may be implemented without some or all of these specific details . in other instances , well known process operations have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention . various techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will sometimes be described in singular form for clarity . however , it should be noted that some embodiments include multiple iterations of a technique or multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless noted otherwise . as used herein , the term “ heterologous ” means not normally found in the host organism . for example , a “ heterologous gene ” is a gene that is not normally found in the host organism . as used herein , a “ heterologous promoter ” refers to a promoter that does not naturally occur adjacent a referenced gene or nucleic acid encoding a reference polypeptide , or a promoter that is not naturally operably linked to the referenced gene or nucleic acid encoding a reference polypeptide . herein is described , a synthetic polypeptide which comprises an amino acid sequence having at least 70 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 , wherein said synthetic polypeptide has a xylose import activity , and the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide comprises an amino acid with a polar side chain at position 79 . in some embodiments , the synthetic polypeptide comprises an amino acid sequence having at least 75 %, 80 %, 85 %, 90 %, 95 %, or 99 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 . in some embodiments , the synthetic polypeptide comprises 1 to 12 membrane spanning domains located at the corresponding positions of the membrane spanning domains of hxt7 . hxt7 ( genbank accession no . nm_001180650 ) is a multi - pass membrane protein involved in transmembrane transporter activity , specifically it is a high - affinity glucose transporter and more specifically a hexose transporter . hxt7 is a member of the major facilitator superfamily and is expressed at high basal levels relative to other hxts . genes for hxt6 and hxt7 are almost identical and located in tandem 3 ′ adjacent to hxt3 on chromosome iv . hxt7 &# 39 ; s expression is repressed by high glucose levels . the topology of the hxt7 hexose transporter follows that of a major facilitator protein that contains twelve membrane spanning domain . the f79s mutation maps to a region that falls in the outer membrane region of a transmembrane helix . further , while no hxt protein is currently structurally elucidated , using the structure of a yyy protein as a scaffold suggests that the f79s mutation may directly impact the protein ligand ( in this case glucose vs . xylose ) binding interaction ( fig2 ). also described herein , a genetically modified microorganism which comprises a gene encoding a synthetic polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 70 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 , wherein said synthetic polypeptide has a xylose import activity , and the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide comprises an amino acid with a polar side chain at position 79 . in some embodiments , the amino acid a the polar side chain is glycine , serine , threonine , cysteine , tyrosine , asparagine , glutamine , lysine , arginine , histidine , aspartic acid , or glutamine acid . in some embodiments , the polar amino acid is a polar , uncharged amino acid . in some embodiments , the polar , uncharged amino acid is glycine , serine , threonine , cysteine , tyrosine , asparagine , or glutamine . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism is a fungus . in some embodiments , the fungus is a yeast . in some embodiments , the yeast is a saccharomyces such as saccharomyces cerevisiae . in some embodiments , the yeast is pichia stipitis , pachysolen tannophilus , and candida shehatae . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism imports more xylose than microorganisms without the gene encoding a synthetic polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 70 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 , wherein said synthetic polypeptide has a xylose import activity , and the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide comprises an amino acid with a polar side chain at position 79 . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism in its unmodified state is unable to import xylose as a carbon source . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism has a doubling time between 4 to 100 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 90 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 80 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 70 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 60 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 50 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 40 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 30 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 20 hours . in some embodiments , the doubling time is between 4 to 10 hours . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism has a doubling time of less than 9 hours . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism has a xylose transport rate between 125 to 250 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 . in some embodiments , the xylose transport rate is between 150 to 250 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 . in some embodiments , the xylose transport rate is between 175 to 250 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 . in some embodiments , the xylose transport rate is between 200 to 250 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 . in some embodiments , the xylose transport rate is between 225 to 250 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism has a xylose transport rate of greater than 186 . 4 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism comprises one or more biosynthetic pathways and / or enzymes heterologous to the genetically modified microorganism for producing a biofuel , valuable chemical , compound of interest , or a precursor thereof . suitable biosynthetic pathways and / or enzymes , and nucleic acids encoding thereof , for use in the present invention are disclosed in u . s . pat . nos . 7 , 670 , 825 ; 7 , 736 , 882 ; 7 , 915 , 026 ; 7 , 985 , 567 ; 8 , 097 , 438 ; 8 , 114 , 645 ; 8 , 163 , 980 ; 8 , 257 , 957 ; 8 , 288 , 147 ; 8 , 420 , 833 ; 8 , 535 , 916 ; 8 , 569 , 023 ; 8 , 759 , 632 ; 8 , 765 , 403 ; 8 , 828 , 684 ; 8 , 852 , 902 ; 9 , 040 , 282 ; and u . s . patent application pub . nos . 2015 / 0087042 , 2015 / 0044747 , 2015 / 0044734 , 2014 / 0370595 , 2014 / 0295517 , 2014 / 0134689 , 2014 / 0038248 , 2014 / 0030789 , 2013 / 0280766 , 2013 / 0267696 , 2013 / 0267012 , 2013 / 0245339 , 2013 / 0115668 , 2013 / 0059295 , 2013 / 0052692 , 2012 / 0288905 , 2012 / 0219998 , 2012 / 0219971 , 2012 / 0190090 , 2012 / 0142979 , 2012 / 0115195 , 2011 / 0229958 , 2011 / 0097769 , 2011 / 0021790 , 2011 / 0014667 , 2011 / 0008829 , 2010 / 0242345 , 2010 / 0218283 , 2010 / 0205855 , 2010 / 0180491 , and 2010 / 0170148 ( hereby incorporated by reference in regards in the biosynthetic pathways and / or enzymes , and nucleic acids encoding thereof ). also described herein , a nucleic acid sequence encoding a synthetic polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 70 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 , wherein said synthetic polypeptide has a xylose import activity , and the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide comprises an amino acid with a polar side chain at position 79 . in some embodiments , an expression cassette comprises the nucleic acid sequence operably linked to a promoter . also described herein , a method for increasing xylose uptake in an microorganism which comprises introducing into an microorganism at least one heterologous expression cassette operably linked to a promoter that drives expression in the microorganism , said expression cassette comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding a synthetic polypeptide comprises an amino acid sequence having at least 70 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 , wherein said synthetic polypeptide has a xylose import activity , and the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide comprises an amino acid with a polar side chain at position 79 . also described herein , a method for culturing microorganisms capable of using xylose as a carbon source which comprises providing a genetically modified microorganism which comprises a gene encoding a synthetic polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 70 % amino acid sequence identity to seq id no : 2 , wherein said synthetic polypeptide has a xylose import activity , and the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide which comprises an amino acid with a polar side chain at position 79 ; and culturing the genetically modified microorganism in a media . in some embodiments , the media contains a pentose such as xylose , lyxose , ribose , ribulose , xylulose , or arabinose , or a mixture thereof . in some embodiments , the media comprises a mixed carbon source such as a mixture of pentoses and hexoses . in some embodiments , the mixed carbon source is a lignocellulosic biomass such as those from energy crops such as switch grass and elephant grass . lignocellulosic biomass used in the production of biofuels is composed of carbohydrate polymers ( cellulose , hemicellulose ) and an aromatic polymer ( lignin ). cellulosic materials generally include about 40 - 60 % cellulose , about 20 - 40 % hemicellulose , and 10 - 30 % lignin . the carbohydrate polymers contain different sugar monomers ( six carbon sugars ( hexoses ) and five carbon sugars ( pentoses )) that are tightly bound to lignin . in some embodiments , the mixed carbon source is waste biomass . one challenge to biomass fermentation is the high percentage of pentoses in the hemicellulose , such as xylose , or wood sugar which unlike hexoses such as glucose are difficult to ferment . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism further comprises one or more genetic modifications that improve xylose utilization . in some embodiments , the genetically modified microorganism further comprises one or more motif modifications that reduce glucose repression . an example of the methods described above is set forth in example 1 and is not meant to be limiting . the following example is intended to be examples of the embodiments disclosed herein , and are not intended to be limiting . renewable plant biomass , after saccharification , is typically and primarily a mixture of glucose and xylose . s . cerevisiae is a dominant host microbe for industry applications , for the production of a large number of chemicals and commodities including biofuels . enhancing xylose utilization has been a major focus in saccharomyces cerevisiae strain - engineering efforts . the incentive for these studies arises from the need to use all sugars in the typical mixed - carbon sources that represent standard renewable plant - biomass - based carbon sources . in general , yeast is cultivated solely on glucose . native yeast has a minor but negligible ability to metabolize xylose , which along with the lack of any native mechanism to uptake xylose , contributes to its sole grown on glucose . while major advances have been made in developing utilization pathways , the efficient import of five carbon sugars into the cell remains an important bottleneck in this endeavor . regardless of improvements in the xylose utilization pathways , if the cell cannot import the carbon source it cannot use it . here we use a semi - engineered s . cerevisiae by4742 strain , engineered with an established xylose utilization pathway , and imposed a laboratory evolution regime with xylose as the sole carbon source . we obtained several evolved strains with improved growth phenotypes and evaluated the best candidate using genome resequencing . we observed remarkably few single nucleotide polymorphisms in the evolved strain , among which we confirmed a single amino acid change in the hxt7 coding sequence to be responsible for the evolved phenotype . the mutant hxt7 ( f79s ) shows improved xylose uptake rates ( vmax = 186 . 4 ± 20 . 1 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 ), and allows the s . cerevisiae strain to show significant growth with xylose as the sole carbon source . in the present study , we used an evolutionary engineering approach to address the problem of xylose import . starting with a s . cerevisiae strain that has been semi - engineered to enhance intracellular xylose consumption , we report the discovery of a mutation in hxt7 that shows improved xylose uptake rates , and allows s . cerevisiae to show significant growth with xylose as the sole carbon source . this mutation , f79s , is predicted to lie within the first transmembrane region and is distinct from any mutations discovered to date . since xylose import into the cell is a limiting factor in s . cerevisiae growth and utilization of xylose , we hypothesized that we could select for increased xylose uptake by subjecting a s . cerevisiae strain engineered with an improved cytosolic xylose metabolic pathway to evolution in xylose media ( i . e . xylose as the sole carbon source ). a by4742 strain deleted for the xr , gre3 , and overexpressing the piromyces sp . xylose isomerase , pspxi , and xks1 ( jbei_scmo001 ) was sub - cultured in synthetic defined ( sd ), 2 % xylose media . fig1 a , 1b and 1c illustrate an example of laboratory evolution of a xylose utilizing strain . after several rounds of sub - culturing , the culture was plated onto solid xylose media and the fastest growing colonies were selected ( fig1 a ). the clones were assayed for growth and xylose consumption and the best performing strains were further evolved in sd , 2 % xylose . this process was repeated until strains were obtained where growth could be seen in one day . the doubling time of the fastest - growing strains in xylose were reduced to approximately nine hours , down from an initial doubling time of over 150 hours for the unevolved strain ( fig1 b ). colonies that showed improved xylose utilization were confirmed to be s . cerevisiae via 16s sequencing . other eukaryotic contaminants , such as aureobasidium pullulans were also detected , but not selected for sequencing . the fastest - growing , xylose - utilizing s . cerevisiae strain ( jbei_scmo002 ) was selected and analyzed for mutations by whole - genome sequencing . sequencing revealed single nucleotide polymorphisms ( snps ) in three genes , including a mutation in the hexose transporter , hxt7 . additional mutations were found in ydl176w , a gene predicted to be involved in fructose - 1 , 6 - bisphosphatase degradation , as well as in an intergenic region on the left telomere of chromosome eight ( fig1 c ). because the mutation in chromosome eight was in a heterochromatic region it was not pursued further . since hxt7 is a known hexose transporter that can also transport pentose sugars with low affinity , the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation was our most likely candidate for conferring growth in xylose . fig2 a and 2b show an example of structural models of hxt7 . like other hxt proteins , spoctopus software ( 36 ) predicted hxt7 to be a 12 - pass transmembrane protein with the f79s mutation located in the first predicted membrane helix ( fig2 a ). since there is no solved structure for any of the hxt transport proteins , phyre software ( 37 ) was used to predict the structure of hxt7 based upon its closest homolog with a solved structure , the bacterial xyle ( fig2 b ). the model predicted that residue f79 resides in the middle of helix one , facing internally towards the central pore . the recently solved structure of xyle has the added benefit that it was crystallized in complex with xylose and glucose , conveying fundamental information about substrate binding ( 38 ). intriguingly , hxt7 f79 lies in close proximity to the bound - xylose in the pore of the xyle structure , and therefore suggests that the residue is poised to affect xylose binding and transport . to test if the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation was indeed responsible for the improved growth in xylose , we individually cloned each mutated gene , hxt7 ( f79s ) or ydl176w ( d504w ), into low - copy plasmids and transformed the resulting plasmids into gre3δ strains overexpressing pspxi , xks1 , and tal1 . the plasmids were also transformed into a strain that contained additional deletions in the genes of interests ( hxt7 ; ydl176w ). the transformants were examined for growth in sd , 2 % xylose medium . both the gre3δ and gre3δ hxt7δ strains expressing hxt7 ( f79s ) grew in xylose medium , reaching a maximum optical density ( od600 ) of between 2 . 0 - 2 . 4 after 40 hours . the two strains transformed with empty vector plasmids showed no growth after 60 hours ( fig3 ). to eliminate the possibility that an extra copy of hxt7 permits growth in xylose media , wild - type hxt7 was also expressed in the gre3δ and gre3δ hxt7δ strains and tested for growth . the strains did not grow in the xylose medium ( fig3 ), confirming that the xylose growth is specific to the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation . ydl176w ( d504h ) did not contribute significantly to the growth of the evolved strain in xylose . strains expressing the ydl176w ( d504h ) alone showed no growth in sd , 2 % xylose medium , while strains expressing ydl176w ( d504h ) along with a wild - type genomic copy only showed marginal growth to od 0 . 6 after 60 hours ( fig5 ). finally , to verify that the growth seen in the hxt7 ( f79s ) strains were indeed due to increased xylose uptake , the amount of xylose consumed from the media was examined after 48 hours . high - performance liquid chromatography ( hplc ) analysis established that strains expressing wild - type hxt7 only consumed 0 . 5 ± 0 . 4 g / l xylose , while strains expressing the mutant hxt7f79s consumed 3 . 2 ± 0 . 5 g / l ( fig6 ), corroborating that the growth seen in hxt7f79s expressing strains is due to increased xylose uptake . in order to understand how hxt7 ( f79s ) affected transport , the kinetic properties of the mutant and wild - type transporters were assayed with radioactive sugar uptake assays ( fig4 ). strains deleted for all hexose transporters that can transport xylose ( hxt1δ , hxt2δ , hxt4δ , hxt5δ , hxt7δ , gal2δ ) were transformed with low - copy plasmids expressing either hxt7 or hxt7 ( f79s ). the wild - type hxt7 transporter was confirmed to be a low - affinity xylose transporter with a km of 161 . 4 ± 22 mm , and a vmax of 101 . 6 ± 6 . 5 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 for xylose , similar to previously published values ( 22 , 35 ). the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutant transporter displayed a similar xylose substrate affinity of 228 . 8 ± 45 . 9 mm , but showed about a two - fold increase in xylose transport velocity ( vmax = 186 . 4 ± 20 . 1 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 ) over its wild - type counterpart . a complete list of strains and plasmids used in this study can be found in tables 1 and 2 , and are available through the jbei registry ( http :// public - registry . jbei . org ( 39 ). yeast cells were grown in standard rich ( yeast extract - peptone ) or synthetic defined media ( sd , yeast nitrogen base with csm amino acids ( sunrise science products ) for plasmid selection ) with 2 % sugar , unless otherwise stated . for yeast kanamycin resistance selection , 250 ug / ml of geneticin ( g418 ) was used in rich medium . bacteria were grown in lb with 50 ug / ml carbenicillin . s . cerevisiae strains were transformed with plasmids using the conventional lithium acetate method ( 40 ). dna cloning was performed using standard techniques ; t4 dna polymerase - mediated ( fermentas ) ligations or gibson assembly in escherichia coli , or homologous recombination in s . cerevisiae . plasmids were recovered from s . cerevisiae by lysing the cells mechanically with glass beads , followed by plasmid mini - prep ( qiagen ). chromosomal gene deletions were generated by integration of pcr products flanked by loxp sites ( 41 ). a by4742 gre3δ strain expressing piromyces sp . xi ( pi - xyla ), and xks1 from two high - copy plasmids was evolved in sd , - ura - his with 2 % xylose . the 4 ml culture was maintained at 30 ° c ., shaking at 200 revolutions / min . mutants with increased specific growth rates were selected through dilution of the culture when turbidity was seen . at period intervals , the culture ( s ) were plated onto solid sd - ura - his , 2 % xylose medium , and several of the fastest - growing colonies were selected for independent evolution in liquid culture . this process was repeated , selecting for the fastest growing isolates at each round , until culture saturation was achieved within one to two days of dilution . in total , the evolution process took approximately three months until satisfactory growth was achieved . at the end of the process , about one dozen clones were re - streaked and tested individually for xylose growth . one of the best performing clones , 7a2c ( jbei_scmo002 ), was selected and prepared for genome sequencing . five μg of total gdna was extracted from the parental and evolved strains , and sent to the department of energy joint genome institute ( doe jgi , walnut creek ) for whole genome resequencing . burrows - wheeler aligner ( bwa ) was used to align reads , and bcftools to assign snps and indels . sequencing files were analyzed using integrated genome viewer software ( 42 ). strains were grown overnight in sd - leu - ura 1 . 4 % glucose , 0 . 6 % xylose medium . cells were pelleted and resuspended to a final od600 of 0 . 1 in 1 ml of sd - leu - ura 2 % xylose medium in a 24 - well plate . the plate was then placed into the biotek synergy 4 , preheated to 30 ° c ., and the growth was monitored by taking the od600 every fifteen minutes , for 60 hours . the concentrations of sugars were quantified on an agilent technologies 1200 series hplc equipped with an aminex h column . samples were filtered through 0 . 45 μm vwr filters to remove cells , and 5 μl of each sample was injected onto the column , preheated to 50 ° c . the column was eluted with 4 mm h2so4 at a flow rate of 600 μl / min for 25 min . sugars were monitored by refractive index detector , and concentrations were calculated by comparison of peak areas to known standards . uptake of 14c - xylose was used to determine the michaelis - menten parameters for hxt7 ( f79s ). 1 - 14c - xylose was purchased from american radiolabeled chemicals . twelve ml overnight cultures grown in sd - ura medium with 1 . 4 % glucose 0 . 6 % xylose were diluted to an od600 of 0 . 1 / ml in 50 ml of media and allowed to grow until mid - log phase ( od600 0 . 5 to 0 . 8 ). 20 ods of cells were centrifuged at 3000 × g for 5 min and washed once with 10 ml of 0 . 1 m potassium phosphate buffer , ph 6 . 8 . cultures were then resuspended in 300 μl of 0 . 1 m potassium phosphate buffer , ph 6 . 8 , and warmed to 30 ° c . 25 ul of cells were then mixed with an equal amount of radiolabeled sugar solutions , producing final mixed sugar concentrations between 10 mm and 400 mm . ten seconds after mixing , the samples were filtered through 0 . 2 μm whatman nuclepore filters ( ge healthcare ), and washed with 10 ml ice - cold 0 . 1 m potassium phosphate , 500 mm xylose buffer . filters were subsequently placed in 4 ml ecoscint xr scintillation fluid ( national diagnostics ) and counted in a ls 6500 scintillation counter ( beckman - coulter ). kaleidagraph software ( synergy software ) was used to plot the data , and to arrive at michaelis - menten kinetic parameters for each transporter . all assays were performed in biological triplicate . one outlier with accelerated uptake was discarded from the 300 mm hxt7 ( f79s ) data set . the predicted hxt7 structure ( fig2 b ) was generated using phyre ( 37 ), and the published xyle structures ( pdb : 4gby and 4gbz ). three - dimensional , structural images were created with pymol ( schrödinger , llc .). the need to engineer a s . cerevisiae strain that can consume both pentose and hexose sugars , ideally together , is well recognized as important for engineering yeast to produce fuels and commodity chemicals . the main impediment to the realization of this goal is the lack of necessary xylose transporters in s . cerevisiae . specifically , two aspects of xylose transport need improvement before the goal of co - utilization can be reached : ( 1 ) transport rates , ( 2 ) glucose inhibition . the latter problem has been recently addressed using an elegant selection approach to generate glucose insensitive gal2 and hxt7 variants ( 35 ). here we show the generation of an endogenous xylose transporter that has high rates of transport while maintaining high growth rates on xylose . in our efforts we compiled several commonly used cytosolic xylose utilization genes and genetic modifications that served as our semi - engineered strain and as the basal strain for lab evolution ( fig1 a ). a lab evolution regime , using serial dilution and plating on solid medium , and 2 % xylose as the sole carbon source led to the appearance of colonies that could sustain significant growth on the xylose sugar ( fig1 b ). the phenotype was tracked to a single mutation in the hxt7 protein and is distal and different from all the mutations tracked to this protein to date . the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation allows for an improvement in xylose transport rates ( vmax ), as well as provides for growth on xylose . lab evolution of s . cerevisiae is a commonly used strategy to obtain variants that have improved xylose utilization phenotypes . several such studies are reported in the literature and each has resulted in the identification of key metabolic and regulatory genes ( 43 - 47 ). our study is the first lab evolution to find a mutation in a plasma membrane sugar transporter ( hxt7 ), highlighting the importance of selecting appropriate starting strains and selective pressures to obtain desired phenotypes . while evolutionary selection is a powerful approach , it cannot sample all possible mutations in the amount of time given in the lab . directed evolution approaches have produced heterologous transporters with improved kinetics , such as the candida intermedia gxs1 pump , and the scheffersomyces stipitus xut3 transporter ( 48 ), and may be a good next step for further hxt7 engineering . native s . cerevisiae sugar transporters all have much greater specificity and uptake rates for c6 sugars . several of the native c6 transporters can leak in xylose , and the one with the best xylose specificity , hxt7 , only displays a km of 161 mm . hxt7 also exhibits a meager uptake rate of 101 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 , does not alone support growth on xylose , and is inhibited by the presence of other sugars ( 22 ). some heterologous xylose - transporters have been identified , and have helped improve xylose utilization ( 31 ). however , their performance has been hampered by reduced growth rates , problems with substrate affinities , transport rates , or substrate inhibition . recently success in engineering of native transporters has resulted in the identification of a xylose transport sequence motif ( 34 ), and the generation of glucose insensitive strains ( 35 ). these approaches also resulted in diminished uptake rates ( vmax ), and resulted in modest growth on xylose , which are not advantageous to future mixed sugar co - utilization . the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation alone enhanced the xylose transport rate ( vmax ), which enables growth on xylose in a minimally engineered background strain . the mutation decreases doubling times from over 150 hours to nine hours ( fig1 b ), and doubles xylose transport rates to 186 . 4 nmol · min − 1 · mg − 1 ( fig4 ), without affecting xylose affinity . using the structure of the bacterial homolog of the yeast hxt proteins , xyle ( 38 ), we were able to predict the structure of hxt7 ( fig2 b ), and to address possible mechanisms of action for hxt7 ( f79s ). the model predicts that the mutated residue , f79 , faces inward towards the central sugar - binding pore . the mutated phenylalanine ( phe ) residue of hxt7 aligns with a phe residue that participates in xylose binding for xyle , providing support for the importance of this residue in hxt7 sugar transport . the amino acid substitution from a phe to a serine ( ser ) shifts the hxt7 sugar - transporting pore towards polarity . this perhaps provides for increased xylose transport rates by allowing for additional hydrogen bonding between ser and xylose ; by allowing for additional water molecules to enter , thereby contributing to substrate binding through water - mediated hydrogen binding ; or by allowing for a conformational change that favors xylose transport . because we do not observe an increase in xylose affinity ( km ) with hxt7 ( f79s ), the latter two mechanisms are more likely . further structural information for the yeast hxt proteins will enhance our understanding of xylose transport , and help to solidify the exact mechanism of how the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation affects xylose transport . both of the mutations found in the evolved strain were reasonable candidates for impacting sugar utilization . the native hxt7 transporter had been previously shown to provide for the highest intracellular accumulation of xylose in s . cerevisiae ( 26 ). the only other mutation in our xylose evolved strain , ydl176w ( d504h ), had an almost indiscernible impact on this phenotype by itself ( fig5 ). although ydl176w is largely uncharacterized , it is predicted to be involved in fructose - 1 , 6 - bisphosphatase ( fbp1 ) degradation and a member of the glucose - induced degradation ( gid ) complex ( 49 - 51 ), making it a likely target for affecting sugar utilization . when s . cerevisiae are starved of glucose for prolonged periods of time , gluconeogenic enzymes such as fbp1 are induced ( 52 ). therefore , one possible explanation for this mutation is that it resulted not from the adaptation to xylose , but instead from long - term glucose starvation . alternatively , components of the gid complex have been implicated in degradation of hxt7 ( 53 ). perhaps yd1176w ( d504h ) could be altering the degradation of hxt7 , explaining the slight growth improvement seen at 60 hours ( fig5 ). this invention has very broad applicability . all industries and research ventures that use s . cerevisiae yeast microbial hosts as their platform to convert sugar to a desired product may find this mutant transporter useful . moreover , the xylose utilization phenotype reported here is due to a single nucleotide substitution , making this discovery easily transferable to established industrial strains . the hxt7 ( f79s ) mutation allows yeast to better use xylose , thus allowing it to use the main sugars ( glucose and xylose ) present in the mixes that arise from saccharification of plant biomass . this ability would be desirable specifically to industries and ventures that are manufacturing bulk compounds and chemicals and that wish to have inexpensive and sustainable biomass as the feedstock . in the foregoing specification , the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments . however , one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below . accordingly , the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense , and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of invention . 1 . keasling j d ( 2010 ) manufacturing molecules through metabolic engineering . science 330 : 1355 - 1358 . 2 . zhang f , rodriguez s , keasling j d ( 2011 ) metabolic engineering of microbial pathways for advanced biofuels production . current opinion in biotechnology 22 : 775 - 783 . 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