Enzymatic Adaptation of Podospora anserina to Different Plant Biomass Provides Leads to Optimized Commercial Enzyme Cocktails

As a late colonizer of herbivore dung, Podospora anserinahas evolved an enzymatic machinery to degrade the more recalcitrant fraction of plant biomass, suggesting a great potential for biotechnology applications. The authors investigated its transcriptomeduring growth on two industrial feedstocks, soybean hulls (SBH) and corn stover(CS). Initially, CS and SBH results in the expression of hemicellulolytic and amylolytic genes, respectively, while at later time points a more diverse gene set is induced, especially for SBH. Substrate adaptation is also observed for carbon catabolism. Overall, SBH resulted in a larger diversity of expressed genes, confirming previous proteomics studies. The results not only provide an in depth view on the transcriptomicadaptation of P. anserinato substrate composition, but also point out strategies to improve saccharification of plant biomass at the industrial level.