Enhanced lignin biodegradation by a laccase-overexpressed white-rot fungus Polyporus brumalis in the pretreatment of wood chips.

The laccase gene of Polyporus brumalis was genetically transformed to overexpress its laccase. The transformants exhibited increased laccase activity and effective decolorization of the dye Remazol Brilliant Blue R than the wild type. When the transformants were pretreated with wood chips from a red pine (softwood) and a tulip tree (hardwood) for 15 and 45 days, they showed higher lignin-degradation activity as well as higher wood-chip weight loss than the wild type. When the wood chips treated with the transformant were enzymatically saccharified, the highest sugar yields were found to be 32.5 % for the red pine wood and 29.5 % for the tulip tree wood, on the basis of the dried wood weights, which were 1.6-folds higher than those for the wild type. These results suggested that overexpression of the laccase gene from P. brumalis significantly contributed to the pretreatment of lignocellulose for increasing sugar yields.