Adaptive evolution of Clostridium thermocellum ATCC 27405 on alternate carbon sources leads to altered fermentation profiles.

Consolidated bioprocessing candidate, Clostridium thermocellum, is a cellulose hydrolysis specialist, with the ability to ferment the released sugars to produce bioethanol. C. thermocellum is generally studied with model substrates Avicel and cellobiose to understand the metabolic pathway leading to ethanol. In the present study, adaptive laboratory evolution, allowing C. thermocellum DSM 1237 to adapt to growth on glucose, fructose, and sorbitol, with the prospect that some strains will adapt their metabolism to yield more ethanol. Adaptive growth on glucose and sorbitol resulted in an approximately 1 mM and 2 mM increase in ethanol yield per millimolar glucose equivalent, respectively, accompanied by a shift in the production of the other expected fermentation end products. The increase in ethanol yield observed for sorbitol adapted cells was due to the carbon source being more reduced compared to cellobiose. Glucose and cellobiose have similar oxidation states thus the increase in ethanol yield is due to the rerouting of electrons from other reduced metabolic products excluding H₂ which did not decrease in yield. There was no increase in ethanol yield observed for fructose adapted cells, but there was an unanticipated elimination of formate production, also observed in sorbitol adapted cells suggesting that fructose has regulatory implications on formate production either at the transcription or protein level.